Cowabunga! Turtle power!

I was very happy with my photographic achievement today. There are two terrapins (freshwater turtles) living wild in the big pond on the business park where my office is situated in Stirling. They are not a native species in the UK, both individuals being of the North American species Trachemys scripta elegans, the red-eared slider. Although quite timid individuals, they will haul themselves out to sun themselves on a quiet section of the bank on bright, warm days like today (it was the warmest day of the year so far, at 24 degrees Celsius). I very carefully sneaked up and was able to take this and other photos very close-up (no SLR and zoom lenses, all my blipfoto posts are from my Android phone). I've been trying to get this close for several years!
So, these two terrapins were probably illegally dumped former pets, bought after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze died down. Those cartoon characters were modeled on this very terrapin species and many were bought as tiny baby pets, only to be discarded when they grew too large for their owners to house. The waterways and ponds of Britain contain many such former pets. These two have been in this pond for 4-5 years and so have survived two very extremely cold winters, probably hibernating buried in the mud on the bottom.