As the summer season winds down, we don't think of this as a time of rebirth and beginnings unless you count the school year commencing. Outside the wind is howling, sending yellow leaves to fall and then plaster themselves to the wet pavement. And yet another of nature's small but still awe-inducing phenomena happened upon the autumnal equinox.
Letting the dog out, I was lucky enough to witness the march of newly-hatched snapping turtles, as they crossed the driveway seeking their new watery home.
This marvel once again cementing my conviction that you merely have to step outside to see wonders of nature, even if it involves a degree of good fortune/timing. Nature isn't limited to national parks. Still, if you don't look out, you'll never see anything. The more time you spend in your yard, garden or whatever you call it, the chances get better.
The first week of June I blogged about the annual egg-laying ritual of our resident snapping turtles. The more menacing of hard-shelled creatures, they come ashore searching for suitable sites for laying their 100 or so eggs, making the garden and the gardener just a bit edgier. It's a quiet reminder that I'm not the owner but just the caretaker of this little piece of landscape.
I counted five of the muddy little guys. Imagine if you will, you are hatched and then immediately have to embark upon a journey to find your home, a home you've never known, but know nonetheless. They are hard-wired to find this home perhaps with an internal GPS, or using their sense of smell to guide them back to a water source.
As they emerged they all headed straight in the same direction, as the first one met up with the lawn, he turned and although the others were straggling 10-20 feet behind, they all simultaneously turned. As my dog sniffed at them they stopped and tried to hide. But snapping turtles are unable to completely conceal themselves, hence the biting as defense mechanism.
As my dog lost interest, I took a few photos. At ground level they seem like any determined toddlers, as they took deliberate and oversized steps with chubby but wrinkled legs. It's up to you to decide if they are candidates for cuteoverload.com!
Through the morning I checked on them, and at some moment they had all decided to take different approaches to the pond. Later I realized the reason the mother snapper lays so many eggs. One had been squished by a van delivering packages to our house. When I pointed them out to another visitor, he picked one up and carried it to the pond. Could the mother snapper have imagined such human intervention, both benign and unintentionally destructive?
