‘miscellaneous’

Painted turtle babies that is! I am Paul and I live near the golf course, and I do behind-the-scene work on this blog. I was walking my dog along one of the back maintenance paths on May 27 and noticed a large (10″) painted turtle on the side of the pathway. As I got closer I noticed that it had dug a hole and was laying eggs! The eggs were just a bit smaller than regular chicken eggs, but had the appearance of light brown hard boiled eggs, with the shell off.

The hole the mother had dug was about 5 inches around, but the nest itself underneath was flask shaped, so it was much wider on the inside. It looked about 6 to 10 inches deep with about 10 eggs in it. She had dug the hole out with her hind legs and was just finishing laying the last of the eggs when I appeared, and was beginning to cover them up as I watched. It was a very touching experience…

Here’s a picture of the covered nest (by the time I had gone to get my camera, Mom had buried the eggs and had left.) - you’ll notice the freshly tamped soil in the green circle, that’s the hole that was covered, the eggs are directly underneath that.

(more…)