The first rescue this Spring

Published on by bushboy

Some day can be different to others especially at this time of year. The other day when I was driving home I noticed a shape on the road and immediately knew what it was. I slowed down and luckily I knew there weren’t any vehicles behind me for quite a distance, I reversed along the road.

There on the road was a Long-necked Tortoise who was moving from the diminishing water in the creek to get to somewhere else, or maybe he was just a male out on the hunt for a female Long-necked Tortoise.

As this was a quick rescue, no time for photos, just grab a towel which I always have in the car for such an occasion.

“A towel is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can carry. Partly because it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”  From Hitchhikers fandom page

But I didn’t need my towel for intergalactic reasons. A towel is always handy when picking up and transporting a Long-necked Tortoise as their other defense mechanism beside retreating into their shell is the squirt a stinky bodily fluid and oh yes it is quite pungent. Once I had this fellow well wrapped and in the car, I headed home. Due to the drought conditions many of the waterways have stopped running and I didn’t know where there was a safe waterhole to put this bloke, so home it was. Earlier in the week I had seen another Long-necked Tortoise in the dam so maybe a bit of matchmaking?

I put him on the floor of my dam.
long-necked tortoise_rescue_dam_shell_named_home_jackadgery_oct 2019
and eventually he poked his head out when I moved him a bit closer to the waters edge.long-necked tortoise_rescue_emerge_named_home_jackadgery_oct 2019
He looked this way and that sniffing the airlong-necked tortoise_rescue_neck_named_home_jackadgery_oct 2019
He checked out the damlong-necked tortoise_rescue_face_named_home_jackadgery_oct 2019
and with a scurry and a splash he was gone.long-necked tortoise_rescue_dam_named_home_jackadgery_oct 2019

He really was a character   Then it was time for me to get back to the house and wash the stinky towel.

38 thoughts on “The first rescue this Spring”

  2. This is so cool! They really are odd looking creatures, almost prehistoric looking.

    My ex husband would stop traffic to pick up a bobtail and carry it across to the bush, ignoring everyone’s impatience. 🙂

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  8. That was such a lovely thing to do. I hope he likes his new home and finds a new wife to share it!
    I am such a romantic! They probably don’t mate for life do they?😀

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    1. Probably not Sue. I didn’t see him yesterday so maybe the lure of finding a female has him off wandering again It would have been lovely if he stayed about, perhaps he is there among the reeds and disappears as he hears me walk along the dam wall 🙂

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  10. Another “Hitchhikers” fan!! Great rescue. My car-towel mostly gets used as a beach wrap for evening picnics or swims — certainly now the boy-child doesn’t need hosing off after various play dates.

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