Roadside Turtle

Tuesday, April 27: I decided to head off to Jonathan Dickinson State Park on a very warm Tuesday afternoon, and as I was walking down the road from the Hobe Mountain Tower (a whole 86 feet above sea level!), I came across this turtle, just hanging out on the sandy soil and eating some plants. In Florida, a lot of the niches filled by mammals in the northern climates are filled by reptiles--instead of mice, for example, there are an awful lot of small lizards running around the forest floor.