Snapping Turtle Laying Eggs

Its that time of year again and the search is on to find Snapping Turtles laying eggs.  I had searched yesterday morning, looking for turtles but had , had no luck.  However today was my lucky day. I was almost ready to give up and go home when I saw a turtle walking toward my car along the roadside.

There was no action to see other than the turtle wandering around and a couple of times tried to cross the highway, however I directed traffic calling attention to the turtle on the road by gesturing toward it  and drivers caught on, saw the turtle and avoided hitting it.  I took a few pictures of the turtle nosing around on the edge of the roadside.

    These huge reptiles are big, ancient  , pretty ugly looking things; but I still find it fascinating when their rhythms of nature can be tracked every year.  After my first turtle sighting I went home and downloaded my pictures and then went down to the river area again AND  this time I found a turtle laying its eggs in a hole dug in the sand alongside the roadside.  Wow!!! What a lucky day I was having!  The exciting thing about this second sighting was that I got a picture of a turtle egg being dropped into the hole it had dug.  As soon as the egg dropped the turtle immediately put its hind legs in motion to draw sand from the sides of the hole to cover the eggs it had laid.

                 The turtle egg is the round, white ball in the center of the picture above.  Good job Mama Turtle!!!
I shall mark September 20th on my calendar as a reminder to check on the possible hatching of  this nest site.  The average incubation period for these newly laid eggs will be about 90 days!

                                     Above the turtle can be seen covering its eggs nest with a sweeping motion of its strong, powerful hind legs.

Finally a female ruby-trhroated Hummingbird

We have been watching our hummingbird feeder hopefully waiting for a female hummingbird to show up and finally , earlier this week we saw both a male and female Ruby-throated Hummingbird feeding at our feeder.. "Oh Happy Day"

male hummingbird feeding on the left and a female hummingbird feeding on the right.

!

American Toad

Garter Snake

I don't often see snakes ad so I was rather pleased ( Not that I like snakes) to see one in my yard earlier this week. The striped body suggested to me that it was a Garter Snake and I feel quite confident identifying it as such.

shown above the Garter snake, head and body

above , the head of the Garter Snake.  I like its yellow eye!

Bye, bye snake . I shall be watching for you during the  coming summer months.( please do not creep up upon me in surprise!, as you might frighten me!)

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds

We have seen few ruby-throated Hummingbirds this year.  Usually the sightings are plentiful and we enjoy watching their visits to the feeds in sight of our windows.  But this year their visits are quite infrequent.  In fact I bought a new feeder and hung it in full view of our dining room window over a week ago. this morning was the first time I saw a hummingbird feeding at the new feeder.  Go figure? Following are a few of the best Hummingbird p[pictures I have been able to get so far this spring.

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