A Snappy Lady Lays Eggs in our yard...

Finally, somebody got around to laying some eggs in our yard! That lump near the edge of the road is a good sized snapping turtle photographed at 6:30am.

At first, Drew thought that this was the grand dame of the pond due to her size. But when I photographed her, we found her to be somewhat younger. Her shell is quite worn, so she is getting up there in years...

Here you can sort of see her using one of her hind feet to scoop dirt out of the nest hole. I was up on the front deck using my zoom to almost its full extent.

She ended up not liking the road location and moved her egg laying operation to an area next to our front walkway. The reason I did not get any photos/video of her digging this hole and laying the eggs is that I had to go to school! Darn!

We'll put a homemade turtle cage around it in the hopes that some baby turtles hatch out in September. Snappers can lay up to 80 eggs, but 20-30 is more typical of what we should find in the nest. The turtles would be all males if the sand temperature is in the mid 70's all summer long. Cooler temperatures, in the high 60's, would yield females. A combo of male/female turtles occurs when the sand temps. are in the low 70's. We'll measure the internal nest temp. over the course of the summer to find the average temp. The baby turtles should hatch out between Sept. 3rd - 23rd for hatching dates between 96-116 days.

Note: Back in Sept./Oct., 2011, after only 96 days in the nest, we had 16 hatchlings emerge from a nest on Sept.18, and 1 more emerged two weeks later on Oct. 3rd. Generally, the hatching time seems to be about 113-116 days in our neck of the woods.