This is a photograph I took of a Three-toed Box Turtle Walking On Rocks. These rocks cover most of the tour road at the Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. The Refuge has been adding these rocks to the roads for the past two or three years. The large rocks haven’t prevented Turtles from crossing. It may slow them down but I see Turtles crossing the tour road most of my visits to this Refuge.

Three-toed Box Turtle Walking On Rocks
Three-toed Box Turtle Walking On Rocks

You can see a larger and higher resolution of this photo here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/screek/48247520827/

How I Got The Shot – Three-toed Box Turtle Walking On Rocks

I was driving the tour road between the first Sandtown parking area and Reeves Boat Ramp. Because of the color of this Box Turtle, I almost didn’t see it. This is a good reason to drive slow and watch for Turtles.

I parked on the roadway and exited my pickup. I placed a beanbag on the road to support and protect my camera and lens. I had my Fujifilm X-T3 camera with a Canon EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II lens attached with a Fringer EF-FX Pro.

I like the eye contact this Turtle was giving me. What I don’t like is that its back legs are still part way inside its shell. The reason for this was because I had to move around the Turtle to get the angle I wanted. This caused the Turtle to place its back legs into its shell. It didn’t tuck all the way into the shell so I knew I didn’t frighten it to bad. When it continued on its journey I didn’t have the angle I wanted so I settled for this shot.

Camera Settings

  • AV Mode
  • Back-button Focus
  • Auto White Balance
  • Multi Metering
  • Single Point, Continuous Auto Focus
  • Aperture f7.1
  • ISO 800
  • Shutter speed 1/210
  • -0.3 exposure value
  • Focal Length 400 mm

Post-processing was with Luminar 3

Wildlife Photography Tip

Look for and photograph the small animals like turtles not just the big animals. Everyone likes to photograph Deer and other large animals but I think all of them are interesting.