What to do when turtles lay eggs in your driveway.
A little after 7 last night I caught Lucy looking out the window. Which of course isn’t strange, but when I couldn’t get her to move away from the window, I decided to take a look and see what had been holding her attention for so long.
It was a turtle. Or rather a turtle digging a hole in our driveway.
That’s weird.
And then it hit me. It was a mama turtle and she was digging a hole so she could LAY HER EGGS. In our DRIVEWAY.
If you look closely, you can see the mama turtle depositing her egg into the ground.
Anyway… This went on until about 9:30 last night until finally, the mama turtle was done depositing her clutch. It was all very exciting and neither the HH or I knew what we were supposed to do {we had thought about moving her at the beginning, while she was digging her hole to someplace safer but decided against it}.
Apparently, according to Whit Gibbons of the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory at the University of Georgia, we are now supposed to cover the area with hardware cloth {which we already have in the barn thank goodness} and wait.
“Turtles, including common pond sliders, snappers and painted turtles, the most common species in lakes of the eastern United States, often nest hundreds of feet from water–the babies will make it back to the water on their own. How they know the way to the water is still a key research question that turtle biologists are studying but have not fully resolved.
The best protection for a nest is to cover it with hardware cloth or chicken wire so that it can get rain and sun but raccoons cannot dig it up. If it was a slider, she may have laid a dozen or so eggs. A painted turtle would lay half as many.
Snappers may lay more than 50 eggs. Most freshwater species have eggs that will hatch in a couple of months, depending upon summer temperatures. But after hatching, baby sliders and painted turtles usually stay in the nest until spring. Snappers often emerge in the fall.”
We have absolutely NO IDEA what kind of turtles wander about our property, but last week the HH found this little guy {or girl} in the yard.
What a pretty shell!
And here’s a picture of another one Lucy found roaming around the backyard last summer.
The mama turtle that laid eggs in our driveway last night looked more like the one Lucy found last year. I didn’t want to get too close to the turtle while she was laying her eggs but she was laying those eggs at a pretty good clip. How many eggs she laid though, we have no idea.
This is what the turtle nest looked like when I got up this morning. You wouldn’t even know anything had happened there last night, mama turtle did an excellent job of covering up her babies.
Or rather, Lucy’s babies. Finder’s keepers, right?
So here we go, the great turtle watch of 2019 begins…
Anyone want to make a guess on a due date?
Have a wonderful Tuesday everyone, may your day be filled with beautiful surprises. 🙂
~Mavis and Lucy
When Turtles Lay Eggs in Your Driveway! It’s pretty darn exciting!
Wendy Clark says
This is so exciting! We will need a play by play 😉
Katelyn says
Ooh, how fun! The colorful turtle you found is a painted turtle – the big one looks like a box turtle.
If I remember correctly, Mama turtles don’t return for their babies so you can relocate the babies once you see them emerging. My daughter’s school has a very old, very large turtle (called Grandmother Turtle) who lays her eggs in the kindergarten yard every year and the kids always have great fun very gently relocating the babies once they start to emerge.
If you make contact with a local wildlife rehabber, that person can also give you a lot of good information about how to help the turtles live a long and happy (albeit slow) life. 🙂
Mel says
Well this explains why I find baby turtles in our herb garden each spring. I wondered how they got to that size so early in the season, but maybe they’re sticking around from a previous hatch. We also have great pictures of Swallowtail butterflies emerging from chrysalides (apparently that’s the plural of chrysalis) in the same bed.
If you’re still thinking about trail cams, you could set one up for this. We actually use Nest cams as trail cams since they have good night vision and are easy to set up–especially if you have outlets in your potting shed.
Renee says
Looks like mama is a snapper. And the one your hubby is holding is a painted turtle. We live on a small lake and have both. I used to have a water garden in my flower garden the babies would find on the way to the lake. When the kids were small (empty nesters now) we would watch them lay eggs too. Exciting watching nature!
Melanie says
Hi! Been lurking for a while and thought I’d comment finally. Love your blog:). I never would have thought that a turtle would’ve laid eggs in a gravel driveway, but she really did do a good job covering it up. Glad you guys saw it so you can keep clear of it until they hatch. And I am looking forward to TurtleWatch 2019 now for sure.
Hope you have a wonderful day!
Robin says
How cool! Wonder if she’s a box turtle. That shell color looks like a snapper but snappers have flatter shells. Looking forward to following the hatching. 🙂 I follow another blogger in Maine who just put an x-pen (exercise pen) in her yard to keep her small dog away from the turtle nests and baby turtles.
Margaret Hudgins says
Would love the www address of this other Maine blogger. I’ve been following Mavis for years, and have always been inlove with Maine, so would love to read another Maine blogger.
Julia says
How exciting! Thanks for sharing!
Linda Practical Parsimony says
I am so excited. This is amazing.
Yvette says
DH is holding a slider (and a female at that). Momma and the one Lucy is inspecting are box turtles.
sindy says
So exciting and fun to experience mother nature. I can’t wait to see your new babies.
I got some fertilized chicken eggs from a friend for the broody hen in my flock. I was so excited to find 1 baby last night when I got home.
Martine says
I think things happen to you just so you have something to blog about lol. How amazing to have a turtle nursery in the garden. Will you be able to persuade Lucy not to dig the eggs up? I can’t wait to see this unfold! x
Katherine says
This is so very cool! You are so fortunate Mavis for all the wildlife on and around your property.
Candice Hofmann says
Hi Mavis,
I love this! This article is the exact reason why I read your blog! I always smile or even laugh when reading! I belong to a local garden club and we were given our own, private presentation last summer at a nearby nature center. We were told that box turtles live in a 2 mile radius area their entire lives and if you remove them from that area they will try to find their way back until they die. (Some sites online say it is only a 1 mile radius.) So now I tell everyone I can that tidbit of info in the hopes they will remember it and never let anyone do this to a turtle. My house backs up to a protected wetland/forested area and I love all the widlife thar comes into my yard, except the deer that eat all my hostas! Grrrrrrr! Good luck with the baby turtles!
BETTY D says
I also just now finding out turtles…stay withing 1 mile radius of there home and not to move
them….Never knew this growing up…but living in the country we never moved them that far
so we did good…grin…. I know many kids like to take them home for pets….even when miles
away from where they live….. I also heard a snapping turtle ..if they bite you wont turn alose
of you…….no sure if we were told that just to keep us from picking them up….grin…
Claire @ Book Lovers Pizza says
I have turtle envy! Would love love to have this happen at our house so my kids and I could watch. Still, will be watching yours. Yay!
Nekey says
This is so awesome! I’m so glad that you blog so that you can share this with us. I can’t wait to see the “birth” post.
Jamie says
Oh my goodness. That is kind of fun, looking forward to updates. Good thing you saw her or you would’ve never known!
Carrie the Naturalist says
Eastern Box Turtle eggs hatch after 90-120 days and in the north can overwinter in their nest site. You may not see them until next year! I’ve seen box turtles lay eggs but haven’t seen them hatch. “Your” box turtle is very dark and appears rather large so she is probably way up there in age. They are endangered in Maine (not sure where you live). You may want to contact the state’s wildlife division and report the sighting. Herpetologists rely on citizen science reports for much of their data. Did you know there are dogs trained to sniff out turtles for research??? It’s so cool!
Jenny Young says
We live on a lake & have had turtles lay eggs in our yard but I’ve never seen them hatch. I would love to!
Laura says
Growing up in Jersey in the 1960’s, we had many box turtles around, even in town. The eggs do NOT overwinter there. We lived near a cemetery and would find box turtles there, and bring them home for the summer. (They’d be released back in the cemetery for the winter). Often they laid eggs in our large outdoor pen, including a pond. Those eggs never hatched, but the neighbors behind us had a larger outside pen that was year-round, and eggs always hatched each mid-summer. The neighbors had 7 kids who would yell to come see as soon as a hatch started.
Amy says
Thank you for sharing this Mavis! My daughter came into the house earlier, “We have a turtle laying eggs in the pathway!!” and I knew just what to do from reading this blog post, LOL. We’re now on Turtle Watch 2019 as well. Ours will be hatching in 72 days, maybe coming out in the fall or maybe wintering in their nest. We’ll see!
Mavis Butterfield says
Very exciting!!! 🙂
Becky says
I live in the woods of Northern Mn., near a marsh nearby. A turtle, box?, just laid eggs in an impossible spot in the driveway. The ups truck will hit it for sure! Can I move the eggs?
Gayle says
I ran across your blog while looking for information on how to protect a turtle nest in my front yard. My dogs and I walked up on the turtle just finishing her task this morning. I would like to try to protect the nest and eggs from dogs, raccoons, lawnmower, etc. 6.3.22
Sharyn says
A snapping turtle laid her eggs in the middle of our driveway. We can try and avoid running over the nest, but we have a septic truck coming that will not be able to avoid this spot. Can nests be driven over and survive?
Mavis Butterfield says
I would doubt it. They aren’t that deep. Our Mama turtle really packed hers tight with eggs.