TURTLE TIME ... IN ARKANSAS

Spring time hit central Arkansas quickly in 2010. No dragging out cold temperatures & dull, gray days into late April. It's warm & green here, with B-E-A-utiful blue sky days, with not a hint of clouds. The trees & grass have gone color-crazy quickly this year. Thanks, Mom Nature !!

I have spent quite a bit of time working in the yard this Spring. Lots of tree trimming & grass cutting already. The combustion engine on the John Deere is burning up that gasoline at $2.74 a gallon. Ouch !! [And the price of gas is predicted to go higher !! Double ouch.]

Along with working in the yard, I have enjoyed my morning exercises, which includes jogging & running the roads around here. Many times in the afternoons, I have been putting in a few miles on my bike as well. It's just so nice to be outside after the Winter we had.

This time of year in Arkansas is "Turtle Time". While running or biking -- heck, even while driving in my truck -- I keep my eyes open for turtles on the local roads.

It being Spring time, there are two "types" of turtles to be looking for:

** Adult turtles ... crossing the road. For the females, it is her looking for a location to dig a nest & bury her eggs. For the males, the travels are to be looking for new bodies of water, usually with a suitable number of females.

** Baby turtles ... just out of the nest, trying to find ANY body of water.

EDUCATION TIME: Many turtle nests have the eggs laid late in the warmer months. The baby turtles hatch down in the ground, but it is too cool/cold for them to dig to the surface. Instead, they remain buried, hibernating in the nest for the Winter & digging out of the nest in the Spring, when the warmer weather conditions make their "escape" from the soil possible.

I find a lot of baby turtles this time of year. It's not just on the road. I've found baby turtles -- & adults -- right in my yard. The first baby this year, was on the road in front of my house. I have no idea where the nest was, although a few females did come through my property last year.

With all the driving I have done -- locally & in other places -- I never have had a turtle jump out in front of my car/truck ... causing me to hit it. Along with the live turtles I see, there are always a lot of dead turtles, crushed on the roads. Doesn't seem fair.

I found these two turtles on my same morning jog. They are Red Eared Sliders. [The one on the left has some shell damage where a bird or other predator has bitten it. The turtle to the right has mud on it's shell still from the dirt of the nest.]

The same turtles, showing the unique colors & patterns of the "plastron" (bottom shell). The top of the shell is called the carapace.

Now the other day, jogging down the road, I noticed some movement going West in the East bound lane of the road. And cars coming from BOTH directions. It was the above ... a baby Snapping Turtle, newly relieved of it's nest.

With all the baby turtles I find each year, I bring them home & set them up in conditions which will allow them to grow in size, strength & shell hardness. [Very important, when their protection is the "house" on their backs.]

When the turtles reach a size where they can be safely released back into the wild ... I do so. While I have a good size collection of turtles, I keep only "exotics", preferring not to keep any domestic turtles. It doesn't seem right to keep in captivity "local turtles".

"Turtle time ... in Arkansas" will continue through mid-May locally. I will be looking for the turtles -- big & small -- & hoping to get them off the roads before they meet up with anything on wheels.