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hwangoMy usual routine for the day involves staying awake until around 6:30 AM or so. My mother usually gets up around 6:00, so I join her for her morning walk around the block, and then go crash.
Thursday morning, we got to about the halfway point of the route when I noticed a small, dark something crawling along the road next to the curbstone. A closer look revealed it to be a very small turtle. I supposed it was possible that it was a very small species of turtle, but it also seemed to be very dirty, so I thought perhaps it might have just hatched and dug its way to the surface. Sure enough, a few feet from the little guy we discovered about 8-10 of them in a pile, with one in the center still poking its head up out of the dirt. I decided I wanted some pictures, so we hurried back up the hill and drove back down to save some time. In the ten minutes or so that this took, they'd certainly spread out quite a bit, but there were also more of them than I would have expected. I counted 36 that I could see, and its quite possible more of them could have already disappeared into the grass, and more of them were still coming up out of the hole at the time, too. Besides taking pictures, we also relocated the ones that seemed determined to crawl around in the street. I had brought a small box for this purpose, since I didn't think it would be good for them to handle them directly.
This whole experience was particularly heartwarming because a couple of years ago we found evidence of a nest of turtle eggs that had been dug up and eaten by something, which for some reason struck us as incredibly sad. Nice to know this batch managed to avoid the notice of whatever ate the others.
Dang, that's a lot of turtles - http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/DSCF3465.jpg
A closer look - http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/DSCF3471.jpg
Size reference - http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/DSCF3490.jpg
Close up of just one - http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/DSCF3468.jpg
Thursday morning, we got to about the halfway point of the route when I noticed a small, dark something crawling along the road next to the curbstone. A closer look revealed it to be a very small turtle. I supposed it was possible that it was a very small species of turtle, but it also seemed to be very dirty, so I thought perhaps it might have just hatched and dug its way to the surface. Sure enough, a few feet from the little guy we discovered about 8-10 of them in a pile, with one in the center still poking its head up out of the dirt. I decided I wanted some pictures, so we hurried back up the hill and drove back down to save some time. In the ten minutes or so that this took, they'd certainly spread out quite a bit, but there were also more of them than I would have expected. I counted 36 that I could see, and its quite possible more of them could have already disappeared into the grass, and more of them were still coming up out of the hole at the time, too. Besides taking pictures, we also relocated the ones that seemed determined to crawl around in the street. I had brought a small box for this purpose, since I didn't think it would be good for them to handle them directly.
This whole experience was particularly heartwarming because a couple of years ago we found evidence of a nest of turtle eggs that had been dug up and eaten by something, which for some reason struck us as incredibly sad. Nice to know this batch managed to avoid the notice of whatever ate the others.
Dang, that's a lot of turtles - http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/DSCF3465.jpg
A closer look - http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/DSCF3471.jpg
Size reference - http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/DSCF3490.jpg
Close up of just one - http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/DSCF3468.jpg
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Date: 2007-08-31 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-01 07:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-01 11:26 pm (UTC)http://www.turtleatlas.org/pdf_manuals/Turtle_Species_Guide.pdf
Awesome PDF that features the happiest looking turtle I've ever seen on page 9.