Mama Snapper, Henne

The sun was not the only thing that came out today. When I spotted those welcome rays in the late afternoon—it had rained most of the morning—I raced over to the Henne Preserve, ostensibly to check for Red-headed Woodpecker nests but mostly to just get in a dry-weather walk and continue field testing the Sigma supertelephoto. I hadn't even put the lens on the camera when I noticed, at the base of a massive oak near the start of the trail, an equally massive reptile that seemed to be working on an excavation project. I'm guessing this was a female, and my suspicion was that she was digging a nest for her eggs. Perhaps she was just too busy. Perhaps she was still groggy from the unnatural chill. Whatever the reason, she didn't rear up and hiss when I approached, and I was able to get quite close—this shot was only five feet away—to the snapper... perhaps the same one I've helped cross the road in this area.