Where have all the turtles gone.

Since I had the day off today and since it was relatively warm, the temps were in the high 20's I headed over to the Black Dog Lake. I was disappointed to find that Black Dog Road was closed and they were doing construction on the north waterway that connects the road to the river. Black Dog Lake is usually one of the best spots to find wildlife during the winter but with all of the construction all that I saw were a couple of eagles. Since I did not have much luck I decided to cross the river and hike around near the Bass Ponds area of the Minnesota Valley NWR. All of the ponds are all iced up and there was not much wildlife that I could see. However during the winter many animals stay in the area by hibernating. Turtles, like the one above that I photographed at the Bass Ponds in September spend their winter in a sort of suspended state at the bottom of the pond under the ice. It will still be four more months or more before we see turtles out sunning themselves like this again.