Butterfly area attracts turtle!

[John Beaulieu]

Like the movie theme from Field of Dreams, "Build it and they will come", a well planned backyard/garden can attract a lot of wildlife. We have been at our present location for 5 years and as we add new perennials and shrubs to our yard we see an increase in birds and butterflies. We have let back areas go wild with native wildflowers and this has helped attract a variety of species. Since becomming interested in Monarchs, I have started a milkweed garden where I grow different varieties of Asclepias. I'm creating a patio-like area with 6-sided pavers, leaving some spaces in a circle empty (no paver) and this is where I have planted 6 varieties of milkweed. As this is still under construction, I have a pile of sand used for putting under the pavers. Yesterday I was wondering the garden and spotted what looked like a turtle on my sand... Closer inspection confirmed that a large female painted turtle was digging a nest in my sand pile. It dug and laid for the afternoon and then covered up the hole in the evening and headed down my garden path to my little goldfish pond. The little pond is simply one of those rigid pre-formed ponds (about 150 gallons at the most). The other day I thought I had seen a frog head that quickly submerged, but I guess it was the turtle! We are over a km from any body of water where a turtle could come from. How it found my pond and my beach-like sand pile is amazing. If it stays in the pond, I will need to take it to a marsh well before the cold weather hits, as the pond freezez solid. I bring my fish inside and transport any frogs that are still around in the fall to areas that they can hibernate in. Now I must look up the incubation time for Painted Turtle eggs. The spot is covered to protect the nest from raccoons and skunks.

[2BFree]

John,

Aside from monarchs my other favorite is turtles. So I am very curious about yours. Did they hatch? If so how many? The book entitled "The Year of the Turtle" by David M. Carroll says, "Most painted-turtle hatchlings over-winter in their nests, particularly those of northern populations." He goes on to say he has seen some emerge as early as the third week in August.

He also wrote that "Warmer summers tend to accelerate the development of turtle embryos. Depending on how far to the north or south the turtles live and the prevailing weather conditions of a particular summer, eggs of the same species may take less than two months or over three months to hatch." (It is a wonderful book). Hope all went well. 2BFree

[John Beaulieu]

2Bfree,

Yes, they did hatch. After a little more than two months of very warm weather, I decided to dig down and see if anything was there. If not, there was no point of leaving the pen set up over the spot. As I carefully reached the eggs, I discovered that they had all hatched and appeared to be patiently waiting for me to dig down. There were nine hatchlings and they are dong fine. To increase the odds of survival, I'll release most of them next year. At this stage survival percentages are small for hatchlings as they are perfect food for so many other creatures such as Herons, large fish, and hungry snapping turtles. I believe that I have the book you refer to... If it is the one mainly dealing with the study of a Spotted Turtle population. I have had turtles since I was a kid and earlier this year my last old turtle (a 30 year old Spotted) died and although it sounds funny, I thought I was turtle-less for the first time I could remember. However, I guess I wasn't, if developing eggs in my yard count.

I saw what is robably the last Monarch pass through Midhurst last week. Tonight the temps are supposed to dip down below freezing for the first time. The native milkweeds have all seeded and died back but the tropical milkweed continues to flower. If we get frost tonight, that will be the end of it. It was a good butterfly year here in central Ontario. We raised and released about a hundred Monarchs.

John

[Keith Petrosky]

If any more turtles come can you please take a picture of them and post it here!

[John Beaulieu]

Keith

No problem. Here are some shots posted in my Photobucket abum
http://photobucket.com/albums/a240/JohnBeaulieu

You can see the screened pen that was over the nest area. I had placed a garbage can lid within the pen to act as a little pond in case the turtles hatched and emerged when we were away at a Monarch workshop.

John

[Keith Petrosky]

John you need to post the link to each individual pic, unless you want to log in and let us have full acess to your account, which I dont think you want for your own privacy.

[John Beaulieu]

I didn't realize that it wasn't working for public viewing. I went into the account info and changed it to PUBLIC VIEWING, I assume the url will now take you to the album (without a password) and not require individual photo urls. Nobody ever mentioned they could not access it and I'm not all that familiar with the workings of it.

John

[Keith Petrosky]

It works fine now.