{"id":144,"date":"2009-10-16T16:09:28","date_gmt":"2009-10-16T21:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2009\/10\/16\/091016_snappingturtle\/"},"modified":"2022-03-15T15:21:38","modified_gmt":"2022-03-15T20:21:38","slug":"091016_snappingturtle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2009\/10\/16\/091016_snappingturtle\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, Snap!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were giving two of my aunts a tour of our neighborhood’s walking path and ponds and I spotted a unusual shape in the stream about fifty feet in front of us. I rushed to the side of the stream and Could. Not. Believe. My. Eyes. (that’s how the cool kids express extreme surprise).<\/p>\n

\"Photo\"Photo<\/div>\n

That’s a snapping turtle (my guess is a Common snapping turtle – Chelydra serpentina<\/i><\/a>), and a rather large one at that. They’re not exactly native to West Texas, and certainly not something you’d normally find in a suburban pond.<\/p>\n

Of course, I had left the house without a camera – these photos came from my iPhone and fortunately they turned out OK. Debbie and I later returned with a decent camera but found no trace of the turtle.<\/p>\n

We later learned that the guys who take care of the landscape maintenance duties found the turtle on “A” Street and put him in one of the ponds. I assume he was making a day trip up the stream in search of frogs and fish, and probably had returned to the pond by the time we went back to look for him.<\/p>\n

After this, I’m not sure I’ll be surprised at anything I see around here. Be sure to check back for photos of an alligator, or perhaps a brontosaurus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were giving two of my aunts a tour of our neighborhood’s walking path and ponds and I spotted a unusual shape in the stream about fifty feet in front of us. I rushed to the side of the stream and Could. Not. Believe. My. Eyes. (that’s how the cool kids express extreme surprise). That’s… Continue reading Oh, Snap!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-midland-odessa","category-nature","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8805,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/8805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}