Critters on the Trail

The first few weeks here, there wasn't a single animal on the trail. Once in a while you'd see a bird or a house cat, but other than that, no dice. Then recently, the weather started to change and some little guys have come out to visit. Like this owl chilling in the woods who I tried to sneak up on, but flew away. (smart bird)


Or a garter snake that Phil found and showed to some high school kids we worked with yesterday.


Then this afternoon, we made a friend named Moki. Ted, our site supervisor, told me that Moki is a male box turtle. You can tell because he has a yellow shell, and the bottom of it is curved so it's easier for him to mount the lady turtles during mating season. He was a feisty fellow, and it looked like he had an infected eye that was closed up. We counted the rings on the back of his shell and estimated that he's about 11 years old. Check him out: