Showy Lady's Slippers

 

The other day I had the pleasure of seeing and photographing some beautiful Showy Lady's Slipper orchids. I was kind of surprised that they were still in such good shape, as typically they would already be done blooming by now. I'm guessing they're a little late this year because of the long, cold spring and early summer that we experienced. In stark contrast to that, the day I photographed these flowers it was unusually hot, in the low 90's, which is rare for as close to the Lake Superior shoreline as these flowers were. I felt very fortunate to have some really nice light on the flowers at the time that I was there. 

Painted Turtle

 

Last week it was a snapping turtle. This week it was painted turtles. I've seen several of them but this one stood out from the rest. When I came across it, I was driving down a forest road and it was on the edge of the road. As I slowly drove by, it turned and hightailed it into the ditch. I stopped to watch as it crawled down the bank, thinking I would see it crawl up the opposite side. Instead, it had turned around and a few seconds later it crawled back up and was peering at me from the edge of the ditch, presumably waiting for me to move along so it could go back to its business.