The turtles outdid themselves today, and I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to post another photo. There’s nineteen of them on this little tussock, now known to us as “Turtle Island,” because of course. And there’s even room for more if they’re careful (which they often are not.)
Near as I can tell, these are entirely eastern painted turtles (Chrysemys picta picta) and yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta) – the smoother, smaller, and flatter ones are the painteds.
Don’t believe me (about the count, I mean)? Here’s a version annotated with red dots for the heads:
While I was getting these frames, there were at least four more on the bank of another tussock island, a couple on various small logs, and at least five large ones that could bask in the shallows near the channel to the bayou portion of the pond. And this says nothing about the ones not yet out of hibernation. We gots a lotta toitles, is what I’m saying.
One of these days I’ll get around to posting the video of them jockeying for position, taken a couple weeks back. Not as many as here, but the competition was amusing.