Last week, I announced that the 23rd was World Turtle Day, but also that I’d be unlikely to do anything about it that day – this was because I knew I’d be traveling, and in fact, all of last week’s posts were written ahead of time and scheduled for certain days, none of them reflecting where I really was. Family matters (nothing serious) required that I shoot out to Tennessee, then up to New York, and the 23rd was slated to be a driving day, which it was.
However, I managed to snag two turtles on days flanking World Turtle Day, so I observed the holiday better than expected, though not in any remarkable way.
In Tennessee on Tuesday, I came across this eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) at the edge of a small cleared area where I was staying. Reluctant to do anything after being disturbed and likely wanting to escape the rapidly-warming sunlight, it never poked its head out or posed fetchingly, but I did determine from the eyes and the plastron that it was a male, and comparing the photos taken by my host of another turtle from a few days earlier indicated that this was not the same specimen, suggesting that the property was home to several – not surprising, really, but this was the only one that I found.
And then on Saturday, once up in central New York, we found another just after crossing the road.
This is a common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina,) extremely common in New York – it’s a smaller specimen, roughly 15-18 cm in carapace length. This was immediately following a downpour and we saw no reason to disturb it, so this was taken from the car window and then the turtle was allowed to go on its way. Had it actually been World Turtle Day, we might have given it a cake or taken it out to dinner or something, but being too late for the holiday, it would have to wait for next year.
There will be more coming along, even though I didn’t do a lot of photography on this trip and conditions conspired against it too often anyway, but I got a few frames of interest. They’ll be along as time permits.
Today, by the way, is also a holiday of sorts, in that it’s the tenth anniversary of our moving to this house – that’s almost scary, really. But we’re available for dinner if you’re so inclined…
[I realized as I linked that post from 10 years ago that there were mantids on the same Japanese maple out front, and so I went out just now specifically to take a commemorative shot. Same tree, but certainly not the same mantis, since they only live through a season. There’s a semi-reasonable chance that this is a descendant, though, since I suspect that mantids return to the same location where they had hatched to produce their own egg clusters. There is a degree of resemblance, you must admit…]
