Giant Snapping Turtle
Each spring we can see Snapping turtles or Painted turtles digging a hole in the ground in which to lay their eggs. They can choose the shoulder of a road (really?), someone’s garden, or in the middle of a yard. But, for the first time, a snapper chose to look in our yard for an appropriate place to dig her nest.
In the morning before work I spotted her in our yard. I could see her moving toward my flower bed along the south side of our house (perfect place, I got that!). She was a whopper! Before she reached the flower bed I barricaded entry using the chairs on our patio. She tried to wedge herself through without success. By this time, one of my work associates came in and she ended up moving the mother-to-be to a different part of the yard where she promptly (well, let’s remember she’s a turtle so “promptly” is a relative term) began digging.
Nope, that was not the perfect place either. So she moved to our gravel driveway and began digging. By this time, my husband and I headed to bed knowing we had an early start for a weekend away.
When we awoke the next morning, we found this turtle trying very hard to dig through the packed red granite driveway. She, obviously, was not making great headway. My husband left a 5-gallon bucket by her side to alert any delivery trucks that she was not a large rock in the driveway but a turtle (very thoughtful of him). We wished her well and off we went.
Upon our return, our driveway was a mess! And no sign of the Snapper. There were numerous large divots in our driveway suggesting that she had made many attempts throughout the weekend without any success of following through on any one hole! I do not know whether or not she ever found the perfect location for her nest. I could only wish her well on her mission, get out the rake, and begin leveling out the driveway!
I love turtles. I hope that snapper found a place to lay her eggs.