Flashback Friday - May 31, 2005

In February 2005 we bought our 2nd home which was our 1st brand new home. Outside of the fact that the house was everything we dreamed of and more - the icing on the cake was the fact that the house sits adjacent to the green belt and also had this pond just sitting right out in front.

Winter became spring and we began to realize how much we really loved living in this location. The twins were 5 and Jason was 11. Spaces to run and play, and to our surprise, lots of living things to see as well. Little brown bunnies, a great blue heron, a white heron, occasional ducks as mentioned HERE, and there are fish in the pond as well. Bass, carp, catfish, and currently tilapia which are an attempt of the HOA to control algae in a more eco-friendly way.

However, there is another type of animal that live in quite large numbers in the pond: turtles. We first noticed the turtles when the weather began to warm up. The turtles like to lay on the edges of the pond to sun themselves! Most of the turtles are afraid of humans, but from what we can tell, the vast majority of the small, medium and large turtles are Red Eared Sliders:

One afternoon as I walked out front to collect the mail I noticed something quite large and very interesting at the bottom of our spindly little tree. A very large female turtle. She was quite diligently using her back fin-type feet to dig a large hole in the soft soil - and literally kicking the loosened soil away from the hole in an apparent attempt to lay her eggs.

Some indication as to her size would be that at that time, I could wrap my thumb and forefinger around the trunk of the tree completely.

Here is a close up of her face. You can also get a glimpse of her shell. It was very smooth and beautifully marked. It reminded me of being high up in space and looking down at the earth at all the beautiful colors of the land.

Shortly after this series of pictures, Mommy Turtle got spooked and scurried back to the pond. We were never certain whether she laid eggs in this location or not. We did watch for the next few hours from Jason's bedroom window and Mommy Turtle did return to our front yard where she busily dug another hole.

I contacted our local zoo and forwarded pictures to them. They believed she is a spiny soft-shelled turtle of which there are many varieties. The zoo gave a best guess of 90 days for the eggs to mature and hatch. They advised us to watch the area and if we saw babies emerging to "give them a lift" to the pond and release them. Sadly, if any hatched - we were not aware of it.

As for the red-eared sliders - they are plentiful and often are seen up on the 2-lane road outside our neighborhood. I have been known to stop my van and pick them up and take them back to the pond. Otherwise, they most suredly would become road kill and I am too soft-hearted for that.