Spring Break Adventure: Gordon’s Creek

Once we got down into the drain, I constantly had to remind the kids to be quiet. There are all kinds of critters down there, and if you are careful you can slip up on them and observe them. Otherwise they will just bloop into the water and you’ll never know they are even there. We didn’t have to go too far to see our first critter:

A medium sized alligator snapping turtle! He has obviously lived down there for quite a while since he has all the algea growing on his back. We didn’t pick him up.

Farther upstream we saw this small soft-shelled turtle clinging to the bottom. Keighly quickly wrangled it for observation.

Wildlife! And a turtle, too!

The turtle seemed calm, and we kept it wet while examining it.

Even Emily took a turn holding it.

On the other side of the fork, Keighly somehow caught this small fish with her bare hands!

While heading back out, Ian miraculously spied this small turtle and picked it up.

From here we made our way back to the van. The Zoo’s train came by and everyone looked at us and waved. I had hoped to be a little more discreet, since I assume we probably aren’t supposed to be down in there. When Emily looked at the people on the train she slipped on some slime and cut her foot. It started bleeding pretty bad, so we needed to leave right then and get it clean.

On our way out we saw the alligator snapping turtle trying to climb the side walls and get into the Zoo! There were some attendants just on the other side of the fence, and we pointed it out to them. They made a call and confirmed it is not theirs, so it must live in Gordon’s Creek. We left it alone so we could get Emily home. As we climbed our way out, Ian saw another smaller alligator snapping turtle under the bridge.

Back home, we cleaned and bandaged Emily’s foot. Then we went outside for some target practice!