 |
While out riding at Stony Creek today, just before finishing up a segment of single track, I came around a corner and almost hit a turtle. It was walking along the middle of some grooved, dry, sunny sandy single track, and liable to get run over. When I passed it quickly pulled its head and legs in, so after quickly stopping I was able to easily moved it off the trail, but not before taking this picture of it. On my next pass through the turtle was nowhere to be seen, so hopefully it has made its way back to a more suitable piece of land.
It turns out that this is a Blanding’s Turtle, a Michigan Protected Species. According to MSU it is categorized as S3, or “rare or uncommon in state (on the order of 21 to 100 occurrences)”.