Winter World_ The Ingenuity of Animal Survival - Bernd Heinrich [60]
There are snapping turtles in the beaver pond near my house in Vermont now. In early June the egg-laden females make their short migration up and out from the beaver bogs to their traditional nest sites. A by-now-familiar foot-long snapping turtle has chosen a sunlit patch of gravel alongside our neighbor’s driveway. In June she scoops out a cavity at that spot with her hind feet and deposits about a dozen white leathery eggs. Then, after covering them, she lumbers on back down to the bog. In early September the hatchlings dig to the surface, cross the road through the woods, and they too slip into the bog. There they bury themselves in the mud and remain until spring.
Turtles are measured in superlatives, from the Galapagos turtle that lives 150 years to the oceanic leatherback that weighs up to fifteen hundred pounds. Turtles have been around and have changed little since the Triassic ages of about 200 million years ago. They shared the earth with the dinosaurs for well over a hundred million years. They have adapted to deserts, oceans, and cold climates. To me they are the most interesting and attractive of reptiles, and I find baby turtles especially appealing. That even includes the baby snapping turtles, whose tails are longer than their bodies and who look like miniature alligators. Unlike the young of birds and mammals, turtles seem complete and self-sufficient replicas of the adults.
The common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) can grow to be three feet long, snout to end of tail, and weigh up to fifty pounds. When they are out of the water, snappers live up to their name. They will lunge at you, and can reputedly snap a broomstick (probably an exaggeration). Still, you don’t mess with them. One early morning in September 2000, as I saw the first white frost on some of the grass and the purple New England asters were just starting to flower, feeding the migrating monarch butterflies coming by daily in droves, I heard a splashing down on the beaver pond. Geese? The splashing continued. A wading moose? I rushed down and peeked through the thick foliage. Mallards—about twenty of them—were flying around the pond in alarm, landing in scattered groups. No geese and no moose were in sight, but on the other side of the pond, close to shore, I saw a steady splashing-churning of the water. I studied this strange phenomenon through my binoculars, without getting any clues. I would have to get closer, so off I ran through the woods and through ankle-deep sedgy shallows, then onto the beaver dam where numerous deer had also crossed recently, judging by the fresh tracks in the new mud laid down by the beavers.
Once I got near the commotion, I saw that it was a duck helplessly flapping in place. I waded out through the muddy water beyond sedge hummocks, till I neared the duck. It flailed harder, dove and disappeared totally from my sight in the now quite muddy water, but reappeared in seconds. Finally I grabbed it, and it then ceased all movement. As I suspected, the duck was attached to something solid. A log? I lifted the duck a bit higher, exposing yellow-pinkish legs and feet. There, attached to one foot, was an object the size of a quart jar, coming to a triangle near the front. It was algae-covered—except for the eyes. The snapping turtle had a solid grip on the duck’s right foot.
Common snapping turtle.
I presume the duck was lured within striking range because the turtle’s back looked like a moss-covered rock for a convenient perch. Although this may not be the designated hunting strategy of a couch potato,