Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Wild Kingdom

Following in Amy's post-footsteps we continue with (Mutual of Omaha's) Wild Kingdom.
We had a big snapping turtle lay her eggs in our yard.
We are at least a mile from the small to middle sized pond where she lives.
I think she was in love with the bowling balls all over our yard.
It took her 2 hours to dig her hole with her back feet.
30 minutes to lay her 20-30 eggs - that looked like pearls, but were the size of ping pong balls.
30 more minutes to fill the hold and stamp down the dirt.
Then she just walked off, back to the pond.
The babies won't hatch until the spring.
I was amazing to watch, she looks like a dinosaur
Take a look:




10 Comments:

Blogger Sally Comes Unraveled said...

Adorable!

I've seen sea turtles go through a similar process on nature shows. obviously, this isn;t a sea turtle. Will the babies make their way back to the pond?

7:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cool!

9:28 PM  
Blogger ColorJoy LynnH said...

Wow. Big wow.

In a previous life, then-hub had seven turtles/tortoises but he never would get anywhere near a snapper. They can take your fingers off, so do be careful.

So cool you were close enough to get photos. Thanks.

3:35 AM  
Blogger Lynn said...

Cool!

(um, why do you have bowling balls all over your yard?)

12:30 PM  
Blogger Mel said...

This is so nifty! I've never gotten to watch anything like this; the closest I've gotten was a litter of kittens born in the garage.

3:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On Saturday I was driving up 23 and saw what I think was a snapping turtle crossing the off ramp near Plymouth. The tail was so long that at first I thought it was some sort of mammal.

1:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jillian! That is amazing!

How very cool.

Also- I talked to Carrie at Knit A A Round... to ask her to con you into doing a knit to fit class....just so you have a heads up:)

3:13 PM  
Blogger Kristin said...

Hey Jillian! Check out my blog - same thing happened to us, except we had to move the eggs. Did you know that turtle gender depends on the tempertaure during their time in the egg? Cool, huh. Umm, yea, I was wondering why you have bowling balls in your backyard, too.

12:53 PM  
Blogger jane said...

so cool. i live in new jersey and have seen more turtles this season than in my entire life, which totally thrills as me - as did your post.

sadly, we don't have any in our yard but we do have a bunny family who coexist quite beautifully with my sweet old lab.

please keep us posted on these turtles!

ta,
jane

3:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

whoa. how awesome! i don't think i ever lived anyplace where there were turtles!

and i don't wonder about the bowling balls at all, only if you've mosaicked them with broken dishes... i keep meaning to.

9:59 AM  

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