On Friday afternoon, I was delivering a large package to one of the houses in the ritzy neighborhood of my route. As I was walking up the driveway I noticed something tiny moving near the garage doors. Even from a distance it caught my attention, perhaps it was my spidey-senses, and I knew it was some sort of critter.
So, I picked up my pace with excitement and lo and behold looky what it was! A very tiny, new born I'd guess, snapping turtle -
Still covered in the dried dirt it crawled out from -
Just look at how tiny! Not much bigger than my thumbnail -
So, I immediately started looking for others in that general area. I was a tad leery since I was now at their garage area and poking around looking under their bushes and the car parked in the driveway but whatever I didn't care and unfortunately I didn't notice any others.
Across from their garages, about some ~30', the lawn pitches upwards quite a bit. The slope, which is all mulch, runs the width of that side of the property, from street to wooded back area out back. In the mulch I noticed the mulch disturbed and that something had been digging -
Upon closer inspection, sure enough, it was the snapping turtle nest! Sadly, it looked as though a predator had located it and dug the nest up, and looking at all the egg shells guessing left with a full belly -
Here's my theory - of course there very well could have been others young'n survived the attached and that hatched along with this dude but I'm thinking most of the eggs were eaten and the egg this little fella came out of was spared. Whether the predator simply missed it or ate it's full and left or was scared off before digging up and finishing ALL the eggs.
Snapping turtle eggs typically hatch between late August and October, so this little fella is right on time.
Although, the area these homes are in does appear to abut what looks like wetlands with reeds, cattails, Golden Rod and Purple Loosestrife throughout, I've never seen a pond or standing marshy water.
Being SO tiny and with no water nearby I assumed this little guy was facing some insurmountable odds if I left him where he was, so I opted for relocation and in the LLV we both went. He kept me company in the truck for the next couple of hours -
I brought him to a nice watery, marshy wetland spot about a half mile from my house. Trudged through the overgrown brush and thorns and poison ivy, placed him on a rock as close to the water as I could get, gave him a safety lecture about staying out of the street, and released him -
I hoping his chances of surviving improved and that he likes his new home!
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