More backyard critters

Actually, it does get more exciting. At about 9:30am I saw a turtle making her way up the yard. She was really plowing along. I thought she might be a red-bellied cooter, which is an endangered turtle in MA, but is known to live in Plymouth County (and pretty much nowhere else in MA). She turned out to be a painted turtle, which is not a threatened species, but it was an interesting couple hours none-the-less.

I got several photos of the turtle while she was on her trek up the yard. She wasn't much interested in either me or Ebony, and Ebony was far more interested in stalking a leaf. I didn't know how the turtle was going to get over the rocks ahead, but she seemed to know where she was going, so I let her be and went back to washing the kitchen floor.

I looked for her to be near the road every 10 minutes or so, but didn't see her. By 10:30am I was getting nervous, because this turtle was moving with great purpose and it seemed unlikely she would not have made it to the street by now. I went out to see if I could find her, and I did - she was digging a hole at the edge of the neighbor's driveway, just outside our front lawn. I didn't see her lay any eggs, but whatever she did didn't take long. The cover-up process took a good 45 minutes and was really interesting to see. By the time she was done, you would never know she had been there, dug a hole, laid eggs and covered them. By 11:30am she was done and on her way back to the pond.

I'm thinking I'll dig the eggs up tomorrow and move them to a safer location.

Our male Baltimore Oriole is a nosy bird, he was always in a branch just above me, watching what I was doing and singing his heart out. He's pretty good company.

At about 5pm, the gray fox reappeared. This time PopPop saw her too. She headed off toward conservation in Hanson, the same direction the last fox I saw went. I wonder if this is one of the pups. I'll try to get a photo of her, since she seems to have a late afternoon routine.

I suppose the raccoon will be back tonight...