The turtle and the eel at Nomahegan Park

by Lisa Blake

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The turtle and the eel at Nomahegan Park

Artist

Lisa Blake

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Photograph - Photography

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Nomahegan Park, located in Union County, New Jersey, has a multitude of wildlife hanging out in the water and it’s surroundings. But, who would have thought there were eels in that water? Certainly, not me!

I took my camera and tripod on a hike to find some turtles and turtles I did find. I set up my camera and tripod where this big turtle had been chilling out with a smaller turtle on some wood in the water. The smaller turtle decided to go for a swim.

My photos had seemed a little fuzzy to me, so I opted to use the self-timer and do a continuous burst of photos to prevent any shaking my hands may have been doing. It was pretty uneventful and getting dark, so my fiancé and I packed up and headed home.

Upon looking through the photos on my computer, we noticed this black thing in the water and wondered what the heck that was. Was it another turtle? Was it a fish?

The next photo showed it moving more out of the water towards the turtle. The turtle saw him coming and moved his leg out of the way and under his shell. We could clearly see it wasn’t another turtle and didn’t really look like a fish.

After a little research, we decided it was an eel. That eel sure is evil and creepy looking! I don’t blame the turtle one bit for moving away. The next photograph looked like the eel was actually trying to attack the turtle, but he failed in his attempt.

I did a little research after capturing these images. The funny thing is that turtles prey on eels, not the other way around. This was one bold eel trying to turn the tables, although unsuccessfully.

Uploaded

May 17th, 2017

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