Bona Dea Snapping Turtle Update

Bona Dea was sunny and a little warm today. The park had drained quite a bit. Found out that the birds I saw yesterday were probably White-eyed Vireos that were flocking in the trees at the spillway. Today the Downy Woodpeckers were out in force along swinging bridge trail. The bird find of the day was an absolutely beautiful Baltimore Oriole male. It had a brilliant bright orange breast and was a large bird. Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmouse birds were all over the same trail. Also some yellow varieties of Warblers were high in the trees. My friend saw some Thrush varieties on the West end of the park.Blue Jays and American Crows were flying around and the Northern Cardinals were singing away. A friend with me today saw Cotton Mouth snakes mating over on Waldon Way trail. There will be some more poisonous snakes around later on. Flycatcher birds of different varieties were around the area. No basking turtles on the logs as the water may still be too high. But speaking of turtles. Take a look at these photos of a big Common American Snapping turtle that was taking a hike on swinging bridge trail. It was not too happy as we were pulling it by its tail to keep it from going into the water. You can see that its right eye is missing. It may not be too happy about that either. I will post 2 videos of this encounter in subsequent posts. Right by the place where I parked the vehicle was a female Prairie Lizard. You can see the detail and see the head and feet real well in the close up and then it ran off and a photo of a full body shot as it was looking back at me.