Gopher Tortoise

In wildlife photography when I take a picture or shoot a video I try not to disturb the animal. If an animal completely ignores me that's a very good thing. But sometimes that can't happen. If a hiker walks by a tree with a hawk in it the hawk will probably fly. Sometimes the small disturbances of the animal just can't be avoided. Especially with a threatened species I try to be very careful in keeping a good radius.

That's what I thought I could get by with in this video. Cindy and I were driving by when we see a gopher tortoise. He saw the car and immediately crouched in the shell. A small disturbance already. But I thought that since I had already disturbed him by driving by this would be a good time to put my camera on the ground to get a little video of the gopher tortoise. The camera is about 5 feet away. I thought that he would come out of the crouch and either leave or resume eating. Either would be of footage that I may eventually use. We then drove away about 30 yards.

The camera is a GoPro Hero Session 4. It doesn't look like a camera, just a black 2" cube.

Obviously the tortoise doesn't think it looks like a camera either. I think he assumes it's another tortoise and begins to threaten it. So much for not disturbing him.

Turn on your sound so you can hear the tortoise snort at the camera. Actually turned into a nice video.