Turtle Caught Sunning Itself on the Back of a Loon
Luke Cuenco 06.08.21
I’ve seen some pretty weird stuff in my time and I’ve also seen my fair share of animals being weirdos, too. However, a Minnesota photographer just recently caught something straight out of a Disney movie – a turtle sunning itself on the back of a loon while a nervous muskrat hangs out nearby. The picture was captured by Scott Rykken who was hanging out at his lakeside cabin in Douglas county Minnesota when he captured the bizarre scene.
Turtle Caught Sunning Itself on the Back of a Loon
The three animals had positioned themselves on a waterborne platform that was built by some neighbors a number of years back and while the loon had taken a squat at its nest that was built on the platform, a turtle had decided that the loon’s back was the perfect place to get some good sun.
Rykken is a retired science teacher who has taken to wildlife and landscape photography and was lucky enough to capture this image. The reason we say lucky is that while Loons, Turtles, and Muskrats do coexist within the same territory, they don’t really tend to interact with one another. The picture that Rykken captured ended up going viral and in less than 24 hours it had been shared over 2,200 times.
The picture is understandably bizarre-looking especially when you consider that loons are extremely aggressive during the breeding season and when nesting in contrast to their normally docile behavior during migration season and when near their wintering grounds. According to Rykken, he said that the loon “never showed any signs of being angered in any way. She even put her wing up once to help the turtle from sliding once it got on top.”
The turtle apparently remained on top of the loon for about 10 minutes before it slid off and while the short ride for the turtle is over, prints of this perhaps once in a lifetime occurrence are being sold as well as others he has taken on Scott Rykken’s website.
All Photos in this article were taken by Scott Rykken.
