Turtle Life
Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”
Turtles Emerge from Hibernation
Turtles spend the winter hibernating somewhere not too far from the pond. Once the ice is out of the pond and the sun is out in the sky, the largest turtles will be seen out on Rock Island or in a sunny patch of grass at the edge of the pond. This event, remarkable only to a phenologist, is likely to be overshadowed by the cacophony of hundreds of wood frogs that also have recently emerged from hibernation. I typically see the first painted turtle when I go out to the pond to watch and listen to the wood frogs.
April 15, 2022. I saw a turtle stick its head up about ten feet from shore near where the wood frogs had been partying.
April 17, 2023. Yesterday, the first turtle rested on Rock Island, while Wood frogs were in full party mode. Today, as the wood frog courting continued, three six-inch turtles sat on Rock Island.
The mature turtles are the first to emerge in the spring, and I suspect that the males are at least a few days in advance of the females. Why? Consider the following three facts. First, the turtles I see early in April are mostly six to seven inches long, while later on I see some that are eight or even nine inches long. This first fact comes from my personal observations. Second, the females are larger than the males. This second fact comes from guidebooks and Encyclopedia Britannica. Third, turtles mate in May, a fact based upon both observations and guidebooks. Is it too much of a leap to conclude that the male turtles, liked the male wood frogs, are very excited by the warm days of spring?
April 23, 2024, sunny, 68 degrees. A second large turtle climbs onto Rock Island, enjoying the first warm, sunny day since “Ice Out” two weeks earlier.
Painted turtles take a half-dozen years to reach maturity, and they can live more than 50 years. The medium-sized and very large turtles start to be seen in early May.
May 5, 2019. At 3pm, eight turtles were sunning on Rock Island, which I think is a record. They varied in size from medium to large and one very large. Another turtle was at water’s edge in the SE corner. Since it drew into its shell rather than slipping into the water, I was able to measure it – 5.8 inches long.
In mid-May, inch-long painted turtles emerge from the den where they spent the winter.
May 10, 2020. Dan Kenerson has photos of a 1-inch turtle that emerged from the garden area just left of their house.
May 17, 2011. A medium-sized and two small turtles sunned on the rock. Dan Kenerson said the small ones had just hatched from a hole near their driveway; he and the kids are transporting them to the pond.
Later in May, male turtles will travel from one pond to another in search of a mate.
May 21-24, 1999. I saw a turtle with a 7-inch shell coming from the backyard to the left of the dock and flopping into the pond.
May 23, 1998. A painted turtle with a 7-inch shell was on the path by the big rock in the upper meadow; it went back to the pond and swam off.
Soon the turtles match up, and the females head out from the pond to look for a place to lay their eggs.
May 30, 2018, 80 degrees, still mostly sunny, 4-5pm. A painted turtle crossed the driveway and headed toward the garden, but she didn’t go in. Later, she returned and spent a couple hours methodically digging a hole at the side of the driveway. Then she layed her eggs and expertly covered the opening.
The newly emerged turtles make a nice meal for birds, weasels, or any of the other predators lurking near the pond. Their only defense is to stay hidden and motionless once they reach the pond.
June 12-14, 2008. I found a small turtle at our end of the Pond; its shell was about 1 inch in diameter. It was very slow at first, so I could easily pick it up and trace its shell in my notebook. It stuck its head in, but after I replaced it by the shore, it eventually peeped out and started to walk.
The adults, once the mating has been taken care of, have little to do other than looking around for a meal now and then. Painted turtles are omnivores, and they will feed on any of the small creatures to be found in the pond. I wonder how hard it would be for them to catch one of the many tadpoles, especially those at the edge of the pond thinking about using their newly grown legs to get out onto the grass. Is it just coincidence that I see turtles appearing right by the spot where green frog tadpoles are thinking about coming out of the pond?
June 20, 2022. June 20, 2022, 315pm, sunny, breezy, great! After I’d been sitting at our end for ten minutes waiting for something to happen, two small green frogs finally popped up out of the mat floating on the surface of the pond. The smaller one still had a long tail, but the other one looked like a frog. Then a medium turtle appeared in the mat, and a snapper raised its head about twenty feet out.
While the elders are content basking in the sun, the youngsters are beginning to venture out of their hiding places. The youngest ones, whose shells were barely an inch long when they emerged, are a half inch longer by mid-July and two inches long by August.
June 22-28, 2022. A painted turtle with an inch-long shell rested alone on the shore at our end on the 22nd. Three days later, it was one of nine turtles with their heads out of the water at our end of the pond. This tiny turtle, which hardly twitched when I first saw it, moved a few inches from the shore into the water, dove under a floating reed, then came up again. I saw it in the same spot the next two days. However, on the 28th, it had ventured across to the other side of the pond, and it joined a small turtle on a scary, narrow ledge at the end of Rock Island.
The youngsters like to stay close to the larger turtles. Sometimes a group has just an adult and one of the youngest. At other times, it’s a family reunion with aunts, uncles and cousins. Since they all just sit there, I can’t tell whether they appreciate or merely accept each other’s company.
July 2, 2022. Two pairs of painted turtles occupied the only dry spots on Quahog Rock. Each pair included a mature adult and a tiny youngster.
In large ponds and lakes, I’ve often seen dozens of turtles sunning on the trunks of trees that have fallen into the water. Our small pond lacks such a conference center, so the largest local gathering is restricted to about nine turtles.
September 4, 2022. Nine painted turtles of various sizes congregated on Quahog Rock to enjoy the sun. This is the most I’ve ever seen in one spot by our pond.
Turtles will climb out on Quahog Rock or Rock Island until late October. But by November, they have all found some place to hunker down for the winter. Another long period of hibernation that will be followed by another long summer basking in the sun. Again and again, for decades. Are they thankful just to be alive? Or do they spend their time pondering the meaning of turtle life?
October 2, 2023, sunny, 66 degrees. At least four turtles on Quahog Rock today. I’ve seen a couple here as late as October 9th, but never before managed a photo this late in the year.
