There were three large snapping turtles in the runoff control pond next door. When the biggest one decided to go roaming and tried to get into the neighbor’s swimming pool, they called me to come get it, so I moved it about 5 miles to a local watersupply reservoir (and adventure in itself…). The other two stayed in this pond where the normal water level is now where more than about 6 inches deep. (However, there’s probably a foot of very soft mud…I’m not stepping in to test that depth… and the snappers burrow into that mud.) I’ve been sitting beside this pond photographing the dragonflies and these snappers. Yesterday, this one spent some time in the middle watching (me??), walked about 1/3 of the way towards me to snag a brood X Cicada and then proceeded to continue directly towards me, clearly curious as it’s head stayed up with both eyes on me. These are three shots as it came closer and closer (too close to get both it’s nose and eyes in focus at the same time), with the third shot when it was about 4 feet from the camera lens. Then I moved to more comfortably tilt the camera down (on a collapsed tripod) and it quickly buried itself in the mud.
about 10 feet out (7D2, 100-400 @ 400, 1/250 s, f/9, iso 400, tripod)
down to 6 feet out (100-400 @ 321)
Closest approach, about 4 feet out (100-400 @ 286)
