All About A Turtle!

Earlier this week I noticed a red-eared slider crawling across the yard at a pretty brisk pace.  Rick had rescued one from the road a few days before and considering it was the same size, we assumed it was the same one coming back across the yard.  When it got to where the ground slopes up to the driveway, it stopped.  It kicked up some leaves for a bit and quieted down.  Rick and I named the turtle “Gary” and joked that if we fed it maybe it would hang around the house for a time.  Every once in a while we get a turtle.  The people two doors down have a small pond that usually dries up early in the summer but with the amount of rain this spring the little depression still had water.

I decided to go out and see what Gary was up to and noticed that he had dug a shallow pit and lowered himself down into it.  Having some suspicions I googled “red-eared slider” and found a surprisingly similar photo of what I had just seen on the turtle’s Wikipedia page.  It seems that we needed to come up with a new name for Gary!  We picked "Geraldine." 

Geraldine digging a shallow hole to lay her eggs.

Red-eared sliders are native to Texas but can be found globally where they are considered an invasive species.  Nesting occurs from April to July so Geraldine seems to be right on target.  Female red-eared sliders can lay anywhere from 2-30 eggs in a single clutch.  We stayed away from her during the laying process so we didn’t actually see any eggs.  So in 59-112 days (the incubation period) we’ll have our answer!

The whole process took a little over three hours.  Geraldine hurriedly covered the nest site moving leaves and mud.  After, she crawled away heading back towards the little pond two yards over.  Upon inspection, the nest site is remarkable hidden and well covered.  No trace of disturbed soil remained.  Leaves were pushed over the site and the only way I could tell the location of the nest was looking for a piece of spinach I had left out earlier (thinking the turtle was hungry, not getting ready for egg laying!).

After covering the nest site.  Nest is located in the shade behind Geraldine.

Leaving the nest site.  Nest is located in the shady front left corner of the photo.

We’ve marked the nest with a ring of small stones so we can keep track of the location.   And on our calendar July 18^th is marked as “turtle birthday”!  Actually it could be anywhere from July 18^th to September 19^th for the 59-112 day incubation period.  That’s a long time to wait!  Hopefully we won’t have any hungry predators around the yard so Geraldine's offspring can make it to the little pond down the road, too.

Turtle nest covered with leaves.  Right photo shows approximate location with white dashed line.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-eared_slider

 and included websites….