Dug up some turtles today....

[CAMAN]

Couldn't find any better place, but if there's a better forum for this feel free to move.

Today I ran across something that is confusing me. I've been doing some landscaping in my yard and was digging a 12"x12" trench across my yard. I had the sod pulled up and digging to depth when a baby ?painted? turtle (no wider than 1") comes rolling out. I pick it up to examine and it's alive and sticks it's head out. I don't know what to do with it so I take it and put it alongside the pond across the street behind the neighbors house. When I get back I pick up the shovel, move a little more dirt and out pop two more turtles the same size, these two were more dazed/sleepy than the first, but they were alive. I figure I should place them next to the other by the pond. When I got back I sifted through the rest of the dirt in that area with my fingers but didn't find any others.

My question is what did I run into? Was this a nest of some sort? I didn't see any egg shells and the ground where this was is pretty dry clay with sod over it in the middle of the yard. I've never seen any dirt piles in my yard either that would indicate something digging there. Were these turtles hibernating? I always thought turtles hibernated in the mud underwater?

Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of them, but they were just the normal turtles with red, orange, and yellow designs on the bottom.

[Surface Tension]

We often get painted and snapping turtles laying eggs in our driveway.

I used to think when turtles hatch they scamper off to nearest lake or pond just like the ocean run turtles that hatch on the beach and run the gantlet of hunger gulls and whatever else eats them.

That was till my wife dug up small painted turtles from the flower garden in the Spring while cleaning out the dead vegetation for the new season. Other then that I don't see the hatchlings anywhere else. I'd have to assume that the little ones spend time catching insects in the garden and then burrow in for the winter. Maybe they're the ones eating the bulbs too and it isn't the chipmunks.

[Matt C]

I bet its the turtles eating all the walleye!

Sorry.. Had ta do it.

[Scott K]