Weather Update! The Turtles Have Spoken!

Editor's note: Cindy wrote this blog prior to June 10. There was a hiccup on Patch, so it never posted. This information is important when you read this blog!

Okay, ready? This time I mean it! The turtles have finally given their final prediction for the weather the rest of the summer. (They said to disregard everything they've said up til now, this time they're sure.)

You might be wondering how we got to this point of certainty —here's the tale:

Up until now, I had been receiving word of an occasional turtle here and there, and made a couple of tentative predictions, but the turtles weren't all nesting the same distance from the water, and I wasn't confident making a solid statement. (Although that didn't really stop me.)

Then yesterday, I talked to a very nice woman who wants me to do a turtle talk this summer for her son's birthday. She lives in Brooklawn, and said she has seen at least half a dozen turtles nesting in her yard this past week—none of them more than 30 feet from the water.

That got me thinking. So I went over to the creek, and looked around the spots where turtles have nested in the past. To my dismay, I saw a large ant swarm close to a nest from last year. Ants usually only gather like that when they're nesting and close to a food source. As I started digging, my heart sank. I found 3 empty snapping turtle eggs right away, and then a fourth. An ant colony can wipe out an entire nest of turtle eggs in a matter of hours, so I knew I had to work quickly.

I ran to the house and grabbed a paint brush and my camera, and went back to the creek. Brushing the dirt away as quickly and gently as I could, I found an intact egg, and then another, and another! I wound up with more than 40 eggs, though some looked like they may have already been damaged by the ants.

At this moment, they are in a tray on my back porch, out of the heat, being misted occasionally, so that any lingering ants can be removed. Once I'm sure that all of the ants are gone, the eggs will be moved to mulch-lined container, covered with another layer of mulch, and left to incubate over the summer. Snappers usually hatch around Labor Day, so we've got a bit of a wait.

Between the Brooklawn turtles and the location of this snapping turtle nest being relatively close to the water (the nest here is in the same spot we found one last year-probably the same mother turtle), I'm ready to commit. With the weather we've been having this past week, it may not be much of a surprise that the turtles and I think that the weather will be very much like last year - dry, with temperatures ranging from average to a bit above average - the occasional heat wave, but not deadly hot the whole time.

The turtles lay their eggs above the high water mark, which means the creek won't flood, which means little rain. Most are nesting in June, meaning the temps will be warm enough for the eggs to incubate until September—if they came out later, then we would worry about oppressive heat for the entire summer.

So there you have it! The turtles have spoken—if they're wrong, it's because they're just reptiles after all, and they made the prediction themselves. If they're right, then I was in on it.