I found this turtle slowly walking through my bean garden in between furrows. I really reallllly really love turtles - I feel terrible about scaring them cause inevitably I have to pick it up and examine all it's neat shell patterns. The golden orange spots on this turtle's armour look alot like hand prints, paw prints and leopard spots... it's too neat for words so here's some pictures:
XoXo
3 comments:
Beautiful turtle! I love the tail, too. I saw a turtle yesterday in Hilo Bay feeding on seaweed. They are amazing creatures.
Their tails are so neat, they are so pre-historic looking. I love how they move so slow you barely notice them, they are so calm, so patient, and have such a great shell of protection. This turtle was really neat to me cause it never closed it's shell all the way, it's curiosity kept it open slightly and looking at me look at it.
Was the turtle you saw a sea turtle? I have never seen one of those in their natural habitat before.
Yes, a sea turtle, a hawk's bill, one of seven species of sea turtles throughout the world, and one of two species we have here in Hawaii. They are endangered. They feed on seaweed that's growing on the rocks along the shore. I was up on a walkway along the shore and could see down into the water. We saw the flipper come up out the water, that's how we spotted it. I had my camera but the sun was making a glare on the surface so I couldn't see it well through the lens.
http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=164
http://www.turtles.org/hawksd.htm
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