A surprise Cute

We were out walking the very wiggly woggles this morning, enjoying the unusually warm weather and that wonderful, damp, things-are-growing smell. And next thing I know THV is crouched on the path, looking at this guy, very very newly hatched:

The tiny white thing on his beak is his egg tooth. He must have hatched VERY recently.

He was making his way to a garbage-filled culvert that gets icky and stagnant in the summers. So we brought him home for a brief photo session

 

Warming up, feeling safer. Look at those tiny feets!

 

A wine cork for scale. I'm a science-y type. Scale is very, very important :)

And then it was off to the beaver pond, to a much more turtle-friendly place to grow up

 

Sigh, makes me wish I was camping.

 

Got him settled.

 

What a wonderful world we live in.

I love it when an unexpected Cute shows up, however briefly. We always stop for turtles crossing the roads around here, escorting them safely to the other side (yes, even snapping turtles). Makes for longer travel time, but seeing all the squashed ones is so very sad. They are having a hard enough time surviving habitat loss, pollution etc. getting squashed by careless or downright cruel drivers is just the icing on a very depressing cake.