Common Snapper

A day or so after M saved a painted turtle crossing a busy road (see below), we found this common snapper returning to the Mill Pond not far from our cottage. Presumably, she had found a suitable sandy spot to dig her nest and lay some 25 eggs overnight, on the other side of the road. Depending upon temperature, the leathery eggs will yield little snappers in about three months. In the wild many predators eat new snappers. Those who survive may live 30 years or more.
Close inspection shows that she has had experience with traffic, her left front shell dented and cracked perhaps last year, and she limped. As we watched she scuttled across the road, fell down the bank onto her back, extended her neck and righted herself, and slipped out of sight into the pond.