June 10, 2018 - Turtle Laying Eggs

Yesterday, I looked out a window at our lake home in northern Minnesota and saw a very large Snapping Turtle digging a hole in our driveway. She was looking for a place to lay her eggs. She needs a place with bare ground so it’s easier to dig. It also needs to be in the open, so the sun will warm the area and promote the hatching of the eggs.

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Here she is, about two hours later, just about finished laying the eggs. I didn’t go close enough to measure, but I estimate her shell was about 16 inches from front to back.

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She covered the hole and left it like this. Notice all the small rocks in our soil.

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I took this photo just as she started leaving the nest area.

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Here’s a close-up of her head. See the algae growing on top of her head and on her shell.

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All finished with her mission, she ambled off toward the lake.

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We’ve had turtles lay eggs in our yard before and usually they are dug up and eaten by some predator. We suspect a Raccoon. After seeing how much work she did, I wanted to help her be successful. I found some pieces of screen, made hooks out of some heavy-duty copper wire, and tried pushing the hooks into the ground to hold down the screen. I was able to coax a couple of them in, but our soil is so rocky that I wasn’t having any luck with the others.

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Finally, I decided to put two large rocks on top to see if that would hold down the screen. I’ll have to wait and see if that works.

TurtleSnappinglayingeggsDunningLakeItascaCounty20180609