Turtles Turtles Turtles!

This is exactly what the title says. Turtles Turtles Turtles! These turtles, which are known as painted turtles, are one of the amazing sights I saw on the same day I also saw a huge tree fall in the forest. Today I'll bring you a few of my favorite closeup pictures of these turtles. Tomorrow I'll bring you the story of how I came to find these turtles, along with more pictures.

I wanted to do this in just one day, but there is just so much! I'd like to be able to show you all of my turtle pictures, but there are way too many. I have well over two hundred pictures of these turtles! Most of them are good ones. I didn't get any duds this time.

Let me tell you something. Turtles have always been a favorite type of creature for me. It's something about those shells that makes them special. There's a certain fascination that I've always shared with most little kids about turtles. I used to catch them to keep them as pets when I was a kid. What other reptile is as popular as a turtle?

Painted turtles are known for their greenish shells, the dark and light green stripes on their heads, and those red streaks at the bottom edge of their shells and around their necks. And as you can see on some of these, the underside is yellow. There are variations in painted turtles, but that describes these.

They can live for thirty years in the wild. The size of these turtles is roughly the same size as the hand of an adult human. They of course vary somewhat from child sized hands for younger turtles, to the same size as a very large adult hand for some of the grown turtles. Painted turtles are omnivorous, so they eat plants and animals. There's much more information on painted turtles all over the web.

These pictures are a small sample of the turtles I saw that day. I'll be able to show you much more tomorrow. It really was so much fun finding these creatures. I wasn't sure I'd ever see turtles on my travels. I'm always amazed at finding something new like this, especially since I don't usually go very far from home to do it.

Turtles all the way down!

There's not a whole lot else I can say in this small introduction to painted turtles. Most of my posts are only meant to inspire you to want to look further for knowledge about the chosen subject. It's a way of pointing you in the right direction, or showing you the correct path to travel on your everyday adventure.

Be sure to check out Nature Center Magazine. There are several new contributors since I wrote my introduction for the site.  Today's new article is a new Nature Site Of The Week that looks at a place called Zoo Kawaii. You won't want to miss this look at some of the best of nature on the internet.