While looking for owls on Thursday, I found these three baby raccoons.  Their tree had been trimmed after a branch had fallen.  There mother was inspecting the changes and these three went exploring around their cavity.

Central Park’s celebrity Red Squirrel was busy collecting nuts and chasing Gray Squirrels on Saturday.

I had heard stories of very large turtles in Central Park, but since I’d never seen one thought they were a myth. These stories included one about a 75 pound turtle being moved from Turtle Pond to the Lake in 1997, and various tales of ducklings being eaten by large turtles.  These stories always seemed as plausible as the Loch Ness monster being real!

But they must be true, or at least partially.  On Sunday, I saw the largest fresh water turtle I’ve ever seen.  It was huge!  It was between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 feet and slowly moved about a cove in the Lake called the Oven. 

I hope it gets looked after during the Lake’s renovation. Maybe it can go back to Turtle Pond, although I suspect we’d have fewer goslings and ducklings reaching adulthood.

A young raccoon is living near the hawk bench and appears every evening around dusk.  As night falls, many of the hawk watchers are now making a stop to look at him/her as they leave the park for the evening.