Tag: Turtle

That’s Snout a Bird

Congrats to Jan on the completion of her Run for St. Jude’s. Brad gave me some quick stats – her 16th year culminating in segments totaling 30 miles over 4 days on 12 hours of sleep while driving an RV 465 miles. Now that is what I call getting it done for a great cause! I am back on my feet so to speak and will be participating in my 20th consecutive (minus the virtual Covid year) Bix7 (link here). This 7 mile road race marked my first race ever after a career ending so to speak injury in my former addiction, martial arts. Linda and I have decided this will be our last time participating in this Quad Cities extravaganza to allow for more summer traveling in the future and other endeavors (the trail is where I belong). I will not miss those two nasty climbs, but I will continue to long for those Whitey’s Root Beer Popscicles at the finish line – yummmmy. In light of this step back for “other” activities, thought I’d go with something also “other” for today’s post.

Softshell Turtle found at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park in Micanopy, FL in April 2023

Clearly “snout” a bird this time ha! Hit the jump to learn more about this long nosed creature.

Continue reading That’s Snout a Bird

Brags and Scales

Howdy everyone! Sorry, but I have to start with a brag. You’ve already read numerous agility accolades on Raven, our middle and smallest Poodle. He also happens to be my dog which may account for some of that boasting. Ruger on the other hand is still dealing with “Puppy Brain” and as I like to say..he’s the cute one (and officially Linda’s dog). Well, guess who became a star over the weekend!?!

Ruger at Fast Cat in August 2023

Just a quick background, Ruger comes from a performance breeder out of NY, strong, too smart for his age and from day one..QUICK. Those are perfect for the agility ring as long as he’s “listening”. Unfortunately, he is still learning that element and if he manages to get ahead of Linda, the Poodle Finger (Linda’s term) comes out and that dog takes any obstacle his eyes lock onto. Imagine a little kid hopped up on Pixie Stix on Christmas morning. The laughter that causes from the crowd just eggs him on. Well, we found his calling – Fast CAT – basically a 100 yard dash event and this weekend was his first competition. Holy smokes, we had no idea he would take to this so well. We tried a few “fun runs” at performance weekends we were at and he seemed to like it. In his first official 4 runs last weekend, he ran an 11.214 s, 11.017 s, 11.0 s then a draw dropping 10.528 s (or 19.43 mph). I need to get to today’s feature, but I can definitely say our little Ruger is still cute..but now we can confirm FAST. Well done little buddy.

We here at Intrigued do our very best to bring you interesting creatures to enjoy and if we are lucky, maybe an interesting story or minimally some background to add a bit of educational context. To do that, we generally need to know what we are looking at..well, at least when it comes to post time. In the field we shoot every damn thing that moves hehehe.

Water snake found at Chain O' Lakes State Park in May 2021

Hit the jump if you want to learn more about whatever this is!

Continue reading Brags and Scales

Cadbury Tryouts

Happy Easter everyone! This morning I was out on my 16 mile training run on the trails of Jubilee State Park when I came upon not one but TWO Easter Bunnies. At first I was admittedly a bit startled. Not so much that I would come upon them in the middle of running the woods, but they didn’t exactly fit the model. Sure, both had two rather large ears, but wasn’t expecting them to each have 6 legs, 2 arms and stand 6 feet tall! One of them extended a Happy Easter and then offered me a chocolate rabbit pulled from a leather pouch. “We are playing Easter Ambassadors and offering treats to everyone we see in honor of our Savior’s rising.” I extended my appreciation for the thought, but passed – can’t imagine the gooey mess that would be by the time I finished the run. We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Note, this happened at mile 14.5 so assuredly the synapses were experiencing some fatigue, however, the large “U” shapes and the ummm… let’s go with presents left on the rest of the trail provided some evidence to the encounter. By the way, those bunnies must east a LOT! Made it home and thought I would get a post out in recognition of the special day and, of course, relay the events from earlier in the day. Spent a significant amount of time going through the 3+ years of backlogged images only to come up empty – NOT A SINGLE BUNNY PICTURE IN THE QUEUE. At a loss, I decided to hold a Cadbury tryout to see what would be the official substitute for the ’21 Easter Bunny. First up…

WTH, that thing doesn’t even have fur.  “..but look at my big cute round eyes and I have Praying right there in my name”.  Uhhhh nope.  Next.

Continue reading Cadbury Tryouts

Slow Motion Life

Well, I kinda lied in my last post.  Ron and I had planned to do a little birding in Allerton Park yesterday, but Ron ran into a bit of bad luck that knocked him out of the event.  Probably not a bad thing in the end due to the stifling heat that we are currently experiencing out her in Flyover Country.  To put it in perspective, I had Linda drive me to the Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve.  I noticed a nice trail in the back of that park while getting in a 6 mile run there Friday evening.  We had a couple of hours after the dog show, so took some time to see if it was worth us hitting it on our next trip over there.  It is actually a pretty nice trail that runs along the Sangamon River – bad thing is after 2 miles I was soaking wet from the heat.  The feels like temperature at home when we got back was 112!

Fortunately, the heat isn’t a problem for today’s featured creature.
Tortoise in Red Rock Canyon - Nevada August 2013

That there is what they call a Tortoise.  Guessing you were thinking Turtle.  They are both reptiles and that is the common name associated with the hard shells, but there is actually a definite distinction between the two.  For starters, Tortoises are land dwellers, where Turtles spend most of their time in water habitats.  Clearly this was the case with these specimens seeing as how we took them outside the headquarters of Red Rock Canyon in Nevada.  This dwelling distinction also leads to another difference – Turtles have webbed feet and very sharp claws to navigate the water and pull themselves up on logs etc. to sun.

Tortoise in Red Rock Canyon - Nevada August 2013

Hit the jump to see a few more pictures and learn a few more facts picked up from some quick research.

Continue reading Slow Motion Life