Interesting couple of days

An interesting past couple of days


Yesterday I grabbed the camera and walked along a canal hoping to get a few photo's of a cardinal or or some other type of wildlife in this area, and I got a few shots of a crane and some ducks, and a novelty shot of an old rotten boot sticking out of the ground with an old pan laying next to it... It looked like an old prospector died there.

That was fun to do, I was hoping to get an alligator but couldn't find any.

But I did find an old medicine bottle and that was cool looking, it wasn't real old, but it was old enough that it needed a cork. It sort of looks like an 8 sided salt shaker without a screw top. The top has a fat lip on it instead.

Today, I decided to scout the other end of the canal where I had gotten a photo of an alligator a few years back before all those hurricanes blew in. But didn't bring the camera... I was just went to look around to see if there was anything I could use for the contest and do some diggin’ along the canal.

I was looking around the bank of the canal through the shells and I found a pretty good size rock that was long and round and had a knob on one end and straight at the other , It sorta resembles a leg bone where the knee meets the thigh… I cleaned it off a little and saw that it was made up of all sand, nothing black... So while I'm looking at this rock, trying to figure out if it was even worth the time of consideration and I hear this squawking sound. Almost like a dog trying to cough up something in it’s throat.

At first I thought it was an osprey and I was near it's nest or something and it was ticked off, but it was a much deeper sound than I've heard from some of the large birds in and around this area and it just didn't sound right... After a few more squawks I look up over the top of the embankment of the canal and about 50 feet away there is a huge red fox staring and squawking at me...I guess that's how they bark... It looked like it weighed about 50-60 lbs.

My first thought was "Cool! ... Here I am in the middle of a city and here's a fox...Wow!"

Then it squawked/barked again and moved towards me, his head was down and his shoulders were up... I thought "Oh shmit! This thing wants a piece of me"...I waited for about thirty seconds to see what it was gonna do, and it would look back and then look at me and squawk again.

I didn't pay attention to whether it was male or female at the time , I was more concerned with preparing to defend myself and not get rabies...

I thought "Well ...this little 2 acre patch of weeds behind the YMCA is probably it's home and I'm probably in it's territory and there's a good chance it has a family and is trying to defend it... I don't wanna hurt it, and I don't want it to hurt me... I gotta scare it away"

So I grab a golf ball sized rock and throw it in it's general direction... It runs back about 10 feet and then comes right back making that annoying noise. So I throw another rock to scare it off and this time, it just stands there and watches the rock roll by... I thought "Uh oh!"

This isn't one of those cute little adorable fox's you see chasin' butterflies …this was a big friggin' fox and there is a rabies alert in our area too. At this point, I really was getting concerned and I thought it was gonna attack... I pulled out my knife and grabbed another rock and this time I was ready to engage... For some reason it decided turn around and head off into the bush... Maybe it sensed my emotion , I don't know. I'm just glad it ended in a good way.

I shook off the encounter and decided to keep searching the canal bank, but with a watchful eye on the patch of bushes the fox went into, just in case it decided to sneak up behind me.

So I'm moseying along the canal and find another long round rock in the water similar to the one I found with the knot on the end earlier... I tried to pull it up but it was in the ground good, It did move though... it's unusual to see elongated rock formations like that around here, so I decided I would come back to it with a hammer when I bring the camera for some photos...Probably tomorrow.

It doesn't stop there... I get to a point where there was nothing left to explore on the bank of the canal and turn back...Still keeping a watch out.

I cross the sandy path where there are these beautiful purple white and yellow flowers... they looked liked an animal from the sea ... no kidding. They are just waiting to be photographed... I think to myself... "Man …I wish I had just brought the camera"

As soon as I look up from the flower, what do I see... nope not the fox but one of the largest and reddest cardinals I have ever seen, it was the color of a maraschino cherry... Now I'm kicking myself because I knew I should have brought the camera... I didn't bring it because it's pretty expensive and I was going to be digging around in the canal bank, and it was just a scouting mission... I had no idea all this was gonna happen ... I guess we never really do, huh? So I watched it picking at berries and flying from one bush to another until it flew away.

Right about this time I was thinking that I've had a pretty full experience on this outing, when I stumble across this pit about 3 feet deep 3ft wide... it had some sort of water or gas line pipe in it, not really sure what it was, but I was hoping there might be a snake or little gator in there... Nope... there was a turtle trapped in there. I don't know what kind it is, but it too was larger than the other turtles of it's kind that are usually seen in the canals, but a pretty common turtle... It had a black face with yellow stripes and green slime all over it's back.

I looked around in the concrete brick pit that was obviously put there by the city to protect the pipe, for the hole that the turtle came from, and there was none...

I thought "How did this turtle get in there"... I looked again for an outlet pipe to the canal, but couldn't see one and came to the conclusion that it just fell in there... the top of the pit was at ground level.

There was no way for it to get out and would die if I didn't at least get it out of the pit. So I poked around with a long stick for snakes and other critters before I hopped in... So I get in there and tap the shell to make sure it really is alive before I go trying to save a squishy dead and rotted turtle... It was alive and it was hissin'... It wasn't a snapping turtle or a box turtle or anything like that so I really wasn't to worried about it reaching around and biting me to much… I've handled turtles like this before, usually trying to keep them away from my bait while fishing and unhooking them when I couldn't.

Anyways... I get the turtle to safety and then realize there is a faint fowl odor in the hole... I started moving stuff around and see that most of the bottom of the pit is covered in this white stuff,... upon further investigation I see that it’s carcasses and shells from other turtles that have gotten trapped in there... They must have been in there a long time because the shell and bones were all white and dried up, I could see the flattened out outline of the turtles perfectly. I'd say there were about 5 or 6 of them in there. I got out in a hurry, god only knows what kind of diseases were in there.

Once I got back home, I told my lady the story and thought it might make a good blog entry.

I did find a few unusual shells, the potential for some fossils and an old Fanta bottle that I threw in the trash after picking it from the water thinking it was another old bottle keeper.

I’ll definitely be taking the camera each time I go back.. When I get some good shots I'll post them.

Til next time…….Tha tha tha that's all folks.