{"id":38956,"date":"2025-05-23T18:47:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T22:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=38956"},"modified":"2025-05-23T18:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T22:50:09","slug":"before-the-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2025\/05\/before-the-deadline\/","title":{"rendered":"Before the deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is World Turtle Day<\/strong><\/a>, and I’m prepared, having in fact obtained a few images the day before, because I’ve got it going on. What “it” is and what “going on” means is up for interpretation, and I doubt we’ll be in agreement over those. Regardless, some World Turtles.<\/p>\n

The explosion of both foliage in the many trees around the pond and large lily leaves within it took away many of the basking spots<\/a> that existed all throughout the fall and winter, and so the turtles aren’t seen anywhere near as much. One of the few spots that remain sun-drenched is quite small, a mere fallen branch that barely clears the water, but it regularly receives its share of users, and then some.<\/p>\n

\"five
That’s five of them in there, though one is only peeking from the water, and none of them are large. From the markings that I can see and the shape of the carapace, I’m going to claim that all of them are yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta<\/em>,) one of four species that are proven to exist in the pond and easily the most common one. This is with the long lens of course, but it’s still closer than they normally allow me to get;<\/strong> I came up through the wooded area and peeked between some trees to get this. A short while later, I did the side angle from further off:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"five
As you can see, the pond has been taken over by the duckweed quite thickly;<\/strong> it really could stand more flow, but even the creek alongside the property doesn’t flow very well – we’re only a couple meters, if that, above the typical level of the Pamlico River\/Sound, so there’s no downhill to work with. And while we have ducks that will indeed take down some of this vegetation, it would take several hundred to make a serious dent in it, I think.<\/p>\n

Back on the creek, there’s a large fallen trunk that’s a favorite basking spot of the turtles there, but they’re typically very spooky and drop into the water at the faintest hint of peoplefolk. Yesterday, however, one ignored its brethren and remained in place, even as I approached pretty damn close. I initially thought it might be the one with the bad eye<\/a> on one side, and it simply couldn’t see me, but subsequent examination of the frames showed that both eyes appeared fine – it just wasn’t that concerned.<\/p>\n

\"very
I have occasionally assigned a sort of psychology to behavior among the larger, older examples of turtles, later realizing it was unwarranted as I compared my evaluation of different individuals:<\/strong> I’d both supposed that they were unwary because they were large enough that little could threaten them, and<\/em> (for other specimens) that they got to be that old by being especially wary and quick to take cover. It’s too easy to build a supposition from little evidence, and even more easy to be dead wrong.<\/p>\n

\"closer
But I still took advantage of the behavior for some closer portraits, and as you can see, this<\/em> eye looks fine at least.<\/p>\n

There are presently three<\/em> spots in the yard with known turtle nests<\/a>, and who knows how many more that I didn’t find or that went a bit further off the property – I’m going to be absolutely paranoid in about two months on, because the newborns will track back to the pond after hatching, right across the yards. This one was found just after closing on the house last year, to give an example of the size.<\/p>\n

\"unidentified
I said<\/em>, “just after closing” – we’d been painting for two days straight, and I found it as I was cleaning the brushes and trays, so hush. And don’t ask me what species it is, because a lot of them look alike at this age, though I suspect it’s a painted turtle.<\/p>\n

This one is definitely an eastern painted turtle (Chrysemys picta picta<\/em>,) though:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"likely
Found in the yard several days back, not long after a good soaking rain, it was likely out to take advantage of the softer ground to find a nest spot, but it’s been so long since I’ve gotten decent pics of a painted turtle that I did several frames from different perspectives to have the detail shots, and then put her back where I found her. A few minutes later, she was nowhere to be seen, having already made tracks.<\/p>\n

\"profile
So there’s a few examples for the holiday. It’s also Endangered Species Day<\/strong>, but while I considered trying to have something for that, time and opportunity weren’t going to let it happen, to say nothing of how difficult it might be to actually get<\/em> photos of any of the endangered species that can be found anyplace close – there aren’t many, and I don’t believe I have ever<\/em> gotten photos of any of them, save for manatees and a couple of crappy images of green sea turtles, taken in Florida. Now, if someone were paying<\/em> for such images, we’ll see what kind of effort can actually be put into this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is World Turtle Day, and I’m prepared, having in fact obtained a few images the day before, because I’ve got it going on. What “it” is and what “going on” means is up for interpretation, and I doubt we’ll be in agreement over those. Regardless, some World Turtles. The explosion of both foliage in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[6758,6757,8128,3808,2828,6182,169],"class_list":["post-38956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-chrysemys-picta-picta","tag-eastern-painted-turtle","tag-hatchling","tag-newborn","tag-trachemys-scripta-scripta","tag-world-turtle-day","tag-yellow-bellied-slider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}