Yesterday was definitely a turtle day. Wild strawberries are ripening in the fields and the turtles are out to stuff themselves while the bounty lasts. The red scraps around this guy’s mouth are indications that he’s already had a few of the tasty berries.
During hot weather, the turtles are most active in the mornings and evenings. Strawberry time provides an excellent opportunity to see turtles. If you don’t see them outright, you can often find them by watching for the plant tops to quiver as the turtle walks by or hearing them crunch through last year’s dead grass stalks.
I take an aerial view of each turtle I find. Since I don’t record the location of each turtle, the photo record doesn’t provide any scientific data concerning turtle movement around the property, but it does show that there are or have been a lot of individual turtles here.
It didn’t take long to run across a second turtle. This one was in a hurry and hardly slowed down for a picture. The strawberries don’t last very long, so the turtles have to be quick about collecting them.
In the next field I found this male and female. It’s a little late in the season for breeding activity. Maybe they were just comparing notes on the most likely place to find strawberries.
Yesterday was definitely a turtle day. Wild strawberries are ripening in the fields and the turtles are out to stuff themselves while the bounty lasts. The red scraps around this guy’s mouth are indications that he’s already had a few of the tasty berries.
During hot weather, the turtles are most active in the mornings and evenings. Strawberry time provides an excellent opportunity to see turtles. If you don’t see them outright, you can often find them by watching for the plant tops to quiver as the turtle walks by or hearing them crunch through last year’s dead grass stalks.
I take an aerial view of each turtle I find. Since I don’t record the location of each turtle, the photo record doesn’t provide any scientific data concerning turtle movement around the property, but it does show that there are or have been a lot of individual turtles here.
It didn’t take long to run across a second turtle. This one was in a hurry and hardly slowed down for a picture. The strawberries don’t last very long, so the turtles have to be quick about collecting them.
In the next field I found this male and female. It’s a little late in the season for breeding activity. Maybe they were just comparing notes on the most likely place to find strawberries.
Awesome! I can only imagine living in a place where wild land turtles still roam around.....Maybe some day.
ReplyDeleteTom
Hope you make it, Tom. Turtles are one thing I never tire of seeing.
ReplyDeletesteve i found one of the turtles shown above and brought it home what should i do
ReplyDeletePut it back where you found it.
ReplyDelete