Turtles abound!

Lately I have seen several turtles crossing the road.  And I mean several.  Last night I asked Jay if he had seen more turtles than usual and he said, as a matter of a fact, now that I mentioned it, he had.  We both agreed it had to do with all the rain and excess water.

So I did what any person sitting near a computer would do...I googled it.  I learned a few interesting things about the common box turtle and I thought I would share a little bit of that knowledge with you.  Aren't you a lucky one?

I found this quote on hubpages which explains the rain/turtle connection a little:  "Box Turtles spend much of their life buried under leaves and in fauna but they love to come out during and after rains to rehydrate and forage for worms and insects brought out by the rain, often following drainage ditches (many drainage gullies are along roads) and areas that temporarily fill with rain water. They navigate by the sun to find their home range so if it rains for several days with constant cloud cover they can wander aimlessly sometimes out of their range and thus may cross a road they normally wouldn't go near."  Interesting.

More cool info:  Box turtles aren't at breeding age until they're almost eight years old.  The females usually have yellowish, brown eyes and the males usually have red or orange eyes.

I learned that you should not pick a turtle up off the road and put it on the other side for various reasons:  a) it could be lost (see note about the sun above); b) it could have been knocked off course by a passing car already and turned in the opposite direction; c) they have very strong homing instincts...if someone did pick up a turtle and take it home, the turtle could have escaped and might be trying to get back home.  A turtle's home range could be three to four acres.

I also saw that turtles like to lay eggs near roads because the ditches make good nests.  Hmm, I wouldn't have thought that, especially with the threat of tractors mowing the ditches.  (I guess the turtles don't know about the tractor's mowing schedule.)

Wikipedia says that, "The average life span of adult box turtles is 50 years, while a significant proportion lives over 100 years."  WOW!  It also says they'll eat about anything they can catch.  Hmm, makes me wonder about what they catch since they're so slow.  It did mention berries.  Now that one makes sense.  They could definitely catch up to a berry, right?

I can't remember a time when I've seen so many turtles crossing the roads.  They're everywhere lately...but then so is the rain.