Painted Turtle, North Lake

It's turtle season! This time of year the turtles are very active as they leave the relative safety of their lakes and rivers in search of a place to lay their eggs. Just the other day at work we had a huge snapping turtle crawl out of the Pigeon River and walk right up the path behind our visitor center and lay eggs in the soil right next to the building. And, the last couple of times we've gone for a drive up in the woods, we've seen painted turtles all over the gravel logging road that passes by Turtle, Swede and North Lakes. The painted turtle shown in this photo was sunning itself on a log along the shoreline of North Lake. This log has been there for many years and each year I see several turtles sunning themselves on it. They sure are cute!