Turtle Hunting and More

I've had my daughter's brand new, unused wedding dress stored at the condo since 2020 when they were supposed to have their wedding ceremony and since it is finally going to be happening this summer (they got married in July of that year but weren't able to have anyone present except their parents during the lockdown) it was time to retrieve the dress and bring it to her to be altered.  So on Saturday we got a fairly early start to go to the condo to collect it to take to DE on Sunday.  

On the way there we got behind this vehicle pulling a trailer that had glitter on the floor and each time they stopped and then pulled away, the glitter would fly up behind it.  I wish I could have gotten a picture to show the sparkle.  I don't know if you can see the pile of glitter on the right side.

We had some time in the afternoon to wander after we returned a gardening implement that HWNSNBP accidentally brought home last weekend after helping some friends do some planting.  It's turtle crossing season so we decided to take a drive down 7 Bridges Road (aka Great Bay Blvd.) in Tuckerton to see if we could see any turtles crossing the road.

As we started down the road we should have realized that it would be a challenge with the line of cars that were also going in our direction.  But HWNSNBP pulled over so that those who wanted to move faster could get around us.  The only problem with that was this one car in front of us who was also watching out for the turtles and getting out of her car to help them across the road - so we didn't see any in that direction.  (Note: They tell you it's okay to help them across the road as long as you put them on the side that they were going to and not back where they came from.)  

When we got to the "end" of the road I looked up to this nest atop the utility pole there and thought that I saw something peering out.

And I knew it was more than just an errant stick when I got the full profile.

The osprey decided to stretch it's legs.

Or so I thought until it lifted it's tail and, if you look to the left you will see that it was talking a bathroom break.  I'll call this the "Poop Shot".  So glad we weren't on that side of the pole.

After we turned around we both commented that there weren't a lot of "white" birds in view.  This one was the only one close enough to the road to get a somewhat decent capture.

But we did get lucky on our turtle hunt on the way back and saw 4 of them.  This one was just entering a little parking area where some launch their boats.  We watched it for a while go towards the water and a young boy picked it up and put it in the weeds by the water to hopefully keep it safe from cars pulling in there.

You see the pictures that I could get were of their backsides because these guys move faster than you think.  They also have a tendency to stop and pull into their shell if they see/hear you coming so I wasn't able to capture any from the front.

There are seven bridges on this road (thus the name) and two of them are one lane and situated on a curve so you can't see from one side to the other and have to stop at a stop light and wait for it to turn green to make sure that there aren't any cars coming in your diretion.  There are signs on both ends of these bridges that clearly say No Fishing, Crabbing, Swimming but as you can see from this photo below the rules apparently don't apply to everyone.  Down aways you can see people sitting in chairs and as if that wasn't enough of an obstacle, they had their poles propped up agains the rail across from them so you not only had to worry about running over their toes, but also knocking over their poles.  And they just look at you like it's a dare.  We barely made over that bridge before the light on the other side turned green - the driver that was waiting there was already beginning to move.....and they do give you a decent amount of time to get over it.  

The smoke from the Canadian fires had dissipated by Saturday but there were some local forest fires that still kept the sky a little hazy.  This was the best that I could do with the sunset that night.