A Turtle Came to Visit
There I was minding my own business trying to get work done when Davinia and Indiana started to bark on the back porch. At first I told them to quit it because well barkign at random things going by on the street just isn’t necessary neither is barking just because other dogs in the neighborhood are barking. But then the sound they were making changed completely and they were barking into the back yard rather then trying to see around the house at someone possibly walking by. SO I went to investigate. I thought maybe the neighbor’s cat was coming for a visit or they saw a bird in the trees. But I couldn’t find anything so I kept looking. Then the leaves started making crunching noises in the yard but I still couldn’t see anything. SO I continued to listen to the noise and look for the leaves moving and that is when I saw our visitor. A Turtle had somehow gotten into the fenced portion of the yard and was trying its best to get out. It could get its head through the chain link but the rest of its body was just way too big.
So I left he dogs on the porch closed the door and went downstairs and into the yard with a towel so that I could pick it up and help it on its way to the woods and the stream at the back of our property. The turtle got nervous for about a split second and stuck its head partially in its shell but then realized i wasn’t there to hurt it. I stayed in the yard with it for about 2 minutes taking pictures and then I picked it up to take it out of the yard.
Here is a video of the turtle and why I had to help it. Clearly it wanted out of the area but couldn’t figure out how to make that happen. I picked it up with a towel and and walked it to the edge of the woods and put it down. It hung around for a bit just sort of looking around.
By the time I got upstairs and back down with the dogs that were very insistent on checking out the yard to see if the visitor was still there the turtle had gone back into the woods. While dogs can be trained to track turtles for Scientific study I am pretty sure they heard the leaves crunching rather then smelled or saw the turtle at first.
Bye Mr. Turtle hope to see you again someday.
Okay, those red eyes freak me out. It looks kind of like one of our eastern box turtles here in TN, except our box turtles don’t have that weird, helmet-shaped shell, and it’s got that hook on it’s mouth. That looks like it could have done your fingers some damage!
That is a male eastern box turtle. The males have red eyes and the females don’t. It probably got in your yard through a low spot in the yard where it could go under the fence but it couldn’t find its way out. Either way I am happy that you assisted it to where it was trying to go and not trying to keep it in a cage like some would.
He was probably on his way to pick up his girlfriend 🙂
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There was no way that he was going in a cage. But meeting him gives me even more incentive to build a pond so that maybe someday he and his girlfriend will come back with their babies to say hello.
It honestly was Davinia and Indiana who saved him, I was working and they alerted me to his plight.
Felissa (Two Little Cavaliers) recently posted..A Turtle Came to Visit
great rescue!xx Speedy
speedyrabbit recently posted..Speedy’s birthday morning!
Oh, that poor turtle, trying to get out like that. It’s so great the dogs let you know, so you were able to rescue him. That is something we have never seen in our yard, but there are spots in our fencing where they probably could get in.
I would have been a bit nervous looking around in the leaves trying to find out what was crunching! 🙂
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Aw what a cute turtle! He’s a yellow headed box turtle.
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So paw some you helped this cutie out. I love turtles.
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