{"id":6278,"date":"2010-05-27T00:08:05","date_gmt":"2010-05-27T05:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=6278"},"modified":"2010-05-27T07:24:25","modified_gmt":"2010-05-27T12:24:25","slug":"turtles-plant-crops-in-wareham-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=6278","title":{"rendered":"Turtles “Plant Crops” in Wareham Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Painted Turtle “Plants” Egg in Wareham Community Gardens<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n

As\u00c2\u00a0late May temperatures soar into the 80s, you can set your calendar to turtle nesting season\u00c2\u00a0when painted turtles scramble out of wetlands, ponds and rivers to deposit their crop of eggs representing the next generation of shelled reptiles.\u00c2\u00a0 We spotted the first nesting females on Monday afternoon and by Wednesday,\u00c2\u00a0nesting\u00c2\u00a0had\u00c2\u00a0shifted into high gear.\u00c2\u00a0 Adventurer and author Dick Wheeler of Wareham spotted a painted turtle nesting in the Wareham Community Gardens off Tihonet Road on Monday evening and immediately reported his sighting to Don Lewis, the Turtle Guy, to see if steps could be taken to protect these babies-in-waiting.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Two Turtle Nests Protected on Path to Gardens<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sue Wieber Nourse, CEO of Cape Cod Consultants and research scientist, met Wheeler at the Wareham Community Gardens early Wednesday morning to install a nest protector over the eggs to prevent rapacious predators from destroying the nest.\u00c2\u00a0 While Wieber Nourse and Wheeler were engaged in protecting one nest, another painted turtle climbed out of the wetlands, crawled into the gardens and found a suitable spot to plant her own crop of six eggs for fall harvesting (that is,\u00c2\u00a0hatching).<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Painted Turtle Sowing Crop of Eggs in Wareham Gardens<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Wieber Nourse and Wheeler\u00c2\u00a0witnessed a fairly rare sight.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching quietly and carefully from a distance so as not to disturb the nervous turtle, they observed the entire nesting process.\u00c2\u00a0 The turtle carefully excavated the egg chamber, patiently deposited six elongated eggs one at a time,\u00c2\u00a0then painstakingly covered the nest and disguised its location.\u00c2\u00a0 Because this turtle had laid its\u00c2\u00a0clutch in the busiest portion of the community gardens, Wieber Nourse decided to\u00c2\u00a0relocate the eggs under the same\u00c2\u00a0protective predator excluder\u00c2\u00a0as the original nest to give them the best chance of survival.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Painted Turtle Egg Sowed in Wareham Community Gardens<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Wieber Nourse gently and individually excavated each egg from the tight packed soil.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0She dug a new nest and carefully placed the eggs in similar fashion as the mother turtle had done.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0She packed down the soil and re-installed the nest protector now covering both clutches of painted turtle eggs.<\/p>\n

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Turtle “Crop” Overlooks Human Gardens<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Both nests now rest comfortably on the sunny pathway to the community gardens where the eggs will incubate under the natural heat of a South Coast summer.\u00c2\u00a0 So, while human gardeners\u00c2\u00a0toil at\u00c2\u00a0weeding, watering and tending their vegetable crops, these eggs, which were buried and abandoned by their absentee mom, will\u00c2\u00a0lie quietly\u00c2\u00a0under the warm earth,\u00c2\u00a0choose a gender depending on the temperature at which they incubate, develop into hatchlings with a\u00c2\u00a0sharp pointy egg tooth to cut their way to freedom, and finally tunnel to the surface and scramble for safety in the\u00c2\u00a0abutting wetlands.<\/p>\n

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The Future?\u00c2\u00a0 A Juvenile Painted Turtle<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With a little luck and a lot of sun, these eggs will hatch in 60 to 90 days to become the next generation of painted turtles in Wareham\u00c2\u00a0with beautiful markings akin\u00c2\u00a0to this adorable juvenile Lewis and Wieber Nourse discovered nearby in mid April.\u00c2\u00a0 While a wild nest faces overwhelming odds of destruction by predators, these babies stand a good chance of survival … thanks to the watchful eyes and intelligent intervention of Wareham’s community gardeners who are already planning a “coming out” party for some magic day in August when “their” hatchlings emerge.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Painted Turtle “Plants” Egg in Wareham Community Gardens As\u00c2\u00a0late May temperatures soar into the 80s, you can set your calendar to turtle nesting season\u00c2\u00a0when painted turtles scramble out of wetlands, ponds and rivers to deposit their crop of eggs representing the next generation of shelled reptiles.\u00c2\u00a0 We spotted the first nesting females on Monday afternoon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6278"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6321,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278\/revisions\/6321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}