This morning I was planting sweet peas at the back fence of our house when I turned around and saw this tortoise.

We had some rain last night and the morning was quite a bit cooler than the last few days so I think he had come out looking for food and then got stranded by the cold when the clouds came over.

It looks like he had started to dig himself a bit of a hole. Perhaps my presence stopped him.

He is quite a large guy. I would estimate his shell is about 60 cm (2 feet) long.

I went away to do more gardening and came back about 20 minutes later when the sun was shining. Sure enough the extra heat had given him more energy to return to safety.

He can actually move quite quickly. At top speed he was travelling about what would be walking speed for us, which isn't bad on those little legs!

On Saturday, while out walking I came across this peewee on a post. His marking are rather unusual. Perhaps he's not yet an adult.

Although I've used "he" to refer to both creature, I'm no expert on determining the gender of birds or reptiles 😀