Last year the turtles in the pond over at Col. Sam Smith Park were nowhere to be seen. Yesterday I decided to vote early for the upcoming Provincial election and I decided to take the scenic route through the park to my polling station. As I got closer to the pond I heard a few boys shouting to one another and one of them mentioned he was on the Turtle Path. This name was new to me but I decided to turn left towards an opening in the pond to see if the turtles had indeed returned.
To my absolute delight, did I not only see one turtle but at least a dozen of them in all sizes. Another woman was also viewing them and we started to talk. She confirmed that they weren’t around last year. I asked her if they were painted turtles (she seemed to know quite a bit about these prehistoric creatures) and she said they were. She also told me that she had just come across a huge snapping turtle on the side of the pond. I decided to save this for another day. I’ll make sure to bring my camera with the telephoto lens.