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NOTHING'S SLOWER THAN A TURTLE

Through the years, several of our photo essays have dealt with the fascinating assortment of turtles that do quite well at Hilton Pond Center, where some species can be seen sunning on pond banks even in midwinter. We've written about a hatchling Common Snapping Turtle we rescued as it crossed the a well-traveled road in front of the Center, about Yellowbelly Sliders who live up to their name by slipping into water at the slightest sign of danger, about Eastern Mud Turtles that prowl the murky depths, and--most recently--about Painted Turtles (below) that lumber onto land each spring to lay their leathery eggs.

All text & photos © Hilton Pond Center

As if on cue, when we were writing our installment last year about Painted Turtles, Chrysemys picta, a mature female came ashore, made her way to the flat, grassless area just behind the Center's old farmhouse, and began excavating a nest hole (below) only a few feet from our office window. We got to watch and photograph the whole event.

Here's what we wrote back on 15-21 June 2008:

Last summer, as planned, we removed the wire mesh in late July but decided to cover the nest with an old ten-gallon aquarium (left) that would corral turtlets as they hatched out. From mid-August through October we checked the upside-down tank almost daily and as autumn came and went we were surprised no young turtles emerged. We left the aquarium in place all winter--creating a sort of terrarium in which several weedy plants stayed green even in the snow--and started checking again for hatchlings in mid-March. Nothing transpired, except plants inside the glass grew prolifically in the warm greenhouse temperatures. When we looked under the aquarium this week we noticed two little dark-green disks; amazingly, the Painted Turtle youngsters had emerged at last!

All text & photos © Hilton Pond Center

After gently scooping up the turtlets and placing them in a glass bowl we pulled out all the vegetation to be sure we hadn't overlooked any hatchings. There were none to be found but we did locate the one-inch-diameter hole (below right) through which these newest additions to our turtle population had emerged. We carefully widened the hole itself, looked within the nest cavity, and were surprised to find no other turtlets or eggs AND no signs of empty eggshells. It seems our Painted Turtle mother had invested a lot of time and energy on a two-egg clutch.

A newly hatched turtle often has a small, raw bump on its lower shell (below), a remnant of where the developing reptile's yolk sac was attached. Only one of our hatchlings bore such a scar but it seemed old, so this--along with the absence of empty eggshells--led us to speculate the new turtlets hatched late last autumn but stayed in the nest until weather warmed up this spring. Baby turtles are known to do just that, undoubtedly an adaptation that allows them to remain safe underground for months rather than running the risk of overwintering in cold--even freezing--pond water.

All text & photos © Hilton Pond Center

After photographing the two little Painted Turtles we were in a slight quandary about what to do next. We thought about placing them in the small water gardens in the farmhouse side yard where we could watch them but ruled that out because they might be too easily captured by the pesky Raccoons that visit almost nightly. We did rule out the completely laissez-faire "natural" approach of just releasing them right where they had hatched because the nest was a good 75 yards from the water--quite a ways to travel for a little reptile barely the size of a 25-cent piece. In the end we simply carried the bowl and two turtlets to the edge of Hilton Pond and watched as instinct took over; they swam away and immediately dived for the relative safety of the dark bottom.

All text & photos © Hilton Pond Center

We don't know if these two Painted Turtle youngsters will make it--there's a good chance they'll be consumed by a big fish or a small heron and maybe even another turtle looking for lunch--but we figured we might as well help out a little. It's the least we could do for two turtlets who, in typically slow turtle fashion, finally appeared ten months after their mother laid her eggs in warm June soil at Hilton Pond Center.

All text & photos © Hilton Pond Center

ADDENDUM: On 25 January 2000--the week before we posted our first This Week at Hilton Pond photo essay, we were running traps and caught 14 birds, including three Chipping Sparrows. On 17 April 2009 were were running essentially the same traps in the same locations and caught 30 new birds--and got one Chipping Sparrow that was already banded.

All text & photos © Hilton Pond Center

A check of the chippie's band showed it was #2390-22239, a number we did not immediately recognize. That's because when we consulted our records we learned it was a bird we banded nine years ago; we simply don't remember all of the older band numbers we've used. At banding in 2000 we were unable to sex this bird--Chipping Sparrows are sexually monomorphic with males and females appearing similar--but we aged it then as an After Hatch Year bird that had to have be born no later than 1999. Based on this ageing convention, upon recapture in 2009 the Chipping Sparrow is After Tenth Year--making it the oldest bird we've ever had at Hilton Pond Center. (We still don't know its sex.)

Despite its advanced age, this bird doesn't qualify as the oldest Chipping Sparrow in the federal Bird Banding Laboratory database--that honor goes to one age 11 years 10 months at its most recent recapture--but we're still very pleased to have renewed our acquantance with this Methuselah-bird we banded back in 2000 at the Center.

All text & photos © Hilton Pond Center

Comments or questions about this week's installment?
Please send an E-mail message to INFO.

Be sure to scroll down for an account of all
birds banded or recaptured during the period,
plus other nature notes of interest.

Thanks to the following fine folks for recent gifts in support of Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History and/or Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project. Your tax-deductible contributions allow us to continue writing, photographing, and sharing "This Week at Hilton Pond." (Please see Support if you'd like to make a gift of your own. You can also contribute by ordering an Operation RubyThroat T-shirt.)

John Chamberlin (on-line donation via PayPal)
Mark Jones (via PayPal)
Lanny & Harriett Givens Rhodes (fellow alumni from Rock Hill SC High School Class of 1964)
Kathy Tinius (via PayPal)