Tuesday, June 16, 2015

I see wildlife

Behold Chelydra serpentina, the common snapping turtle. Every year about this time I'll spot at least one female snapper trucking on down the road looking for a nesting site. I have a hunch this one was heading for the CN tracks because there's a fair amount of exposed stamp sand as part of the roadbed there. Maybe I'm giving the turtle more credit than she deserves, but I assume she had a goal in mind -- she was walking along the road and not just crossing it.

I always wonder how turtles manage to survive -- they pick some of the riskiest sites I can imagine for laying their eggs. A few years ago a painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) decided the turn-around for our driveway would make a good nesting site. Granted, the spot she picked was sand so I guess it's kind of beach-like, but it was also right in the middle of where we turn the vehicles around. After she left, we marked the spot so we'd know to avoid it, but that didn't really help. The S.O.'s elderly cousin who has some vision problems (we joke about his "seeing eye 4-wheeler" because he's driving the local roads primarily by memory) couldn't see the marker and drove right over it. That suggests that particular turtle's reproductive success for that year was Zero. Still, some turtles must be nesting successfully. If they weren't, we wouldn't keep seeing other turtles picking high risk locales.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know much about their habits but they do seem to pick some strange places. I saw a big snail here, no clue how they can survive here.

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  2. I swear turtles are really dumb..going into town on Tokio Road I see a turtle trying to cross the road..so I stop pick it up and put it on the side it was going to...coming back same dumb ass turtle is back in the middle of the road going the other way..I stop and put it on the side it was going..2 days later I'm on Tokio going over the railroad track hurrying cause there was a train coming and wanted to get there before the bars came down..there's the same damn turtle right in the middle of the tracks..taking a nap I think..so I stop and toss him in the back of the truck..going to bbq contest to judge so took him with me and stopped out in middle of country ..took him out and walked 20 feet in middle of field and put him/her down..I expect it to show up any day in middle of Tokio again.

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