after a long, cold start, spring has finally sprung here in the midcoast, with flora and fauna waking up seemingly overnight from a winter that never really came to be. more of a siesta, really than a slumber, but whatever your feelings are on the matter, and there are sure some strong feelings going around, there is no denying the current state of things.
in our area, jefferson, me, on the banks of a creek feeding into the north end of lake damariscotta, we are now greeted on some mornings with tiny newcomers into this world!
please read on..
baby painted turtles. there seems to be a new nest every other day or so, even now, in the later days of august.
pretty cute, yeah? yeah.
so, in addition to all the widdle painters crawling around, this summer has presented us with more snapping turtles than we've ever seen before. swimming in the creek, sunning in the road, unfortunately, dead in the road, in jessica's dreams, and one morning, along side our house:
by no means a mythic lake monster of childhood summer nightmares, but still big and feisty enough to take a chunk outta ya if your not careful! and the very next day..:
..and the very next day.. i noticed, along side our house, a larger nest had been laid and raided, opened eggshells all over. these shells were bigger, and the overall nest bigger, than the painters we'd seen earlier, so this nest must've been why that snapper had been hanging around. i s'pect a raccoon got into it, but on further inspection, about 12 - 15 eggs were still left in the nest, untouched!
we, of course, are now incubating them inside, and have been for about two months, in a shallow casserole dish, buried in sand. which brings us back to today, late august. as i am prone to being impatient, and don't do well with a lack of information, i decided to dig up some eggs to candle them. yeh know, just to make sure they weren't spoiled or something. i was duly rewarded:
widdle baby snappers!
more to come...
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