Mid- april into early May is a key time of turtle migration in the
primary areas I have observed over the past thirty years. As described
in YEAR OF THE TURTLE and in SWAMPWALKER’S JOURNAL (v. “Migrations”.
p. 175 ff.) when the first really heated days occur, with temperatures
above 70 or so, and especially in the 80s (if such temperatures occur
in the springtime’s early going) turtles begin to shift from niches in
which they have overwintered to the habitats of their critical early
foraging and, for adults, mating. I suspect that these journeys had
already been under way when I sighted my first spotted turtle in the
Swale, a large vernal pool habitat with emergent reed canarygrass; and
tussock, inflated, and other sedges, bordered by dense emergent alder
and winterberry. This spring has had spells of dark and rather chill
weather, with only two days or so of days with full sun and
temperatures in the 70 -80 degree range. But the turtles have taken
advantage of parts of days when these journeys were favored by travels
out and away from their winterholds. On the 27th of April I saw a pair
of spotted turtles, male and female, basking together on a tussock
sedge mound in the Swale. It is not uncommon to find both sexes
basking in close proximity at this early in the season, so close to
their time of courtship and mating. They were out beyond the dense and
difficult shrub border, with its myriad interwoven stems and branches,
and more of their woody growth horizontal (from the water surface to
their crowns) than vertical. I knew I could not approach them without
having them take to cover in the water, so backed away without being
noticed and spent time in a key migration stream, a slender, shallow
slip of water through alder and red-maple swamp, to see if I might
encounter others on their way to the Swale. (This is a primary setting
in my FOLLOWING THE WATER.) I encountered no traveling turtles and
returned to look in on the Swale, where – almost three hours later –
the pair of spotted turtles was still basking. Again I knew that I
could not sneak up on them in their clear space, but decided to wade
into the shrub border and on out to the extensive grass and sedge zone
in which they were sunning themselves. I might be fortunate enough to
come upon a turtle in the water who was not aware of me. My struggle
through the shrub margin took awhile, and of course could not help but
be observed by the basking turtles, and they were long gone by the
time I waded into the clear. Clear above the water that is; this great
pool (perhaps two and a half acres in all) is filled with submergent
stems and blades, dense mattings of them, from the previous year’s
rampant growth. And this thick array of sunken vegetation serves each
spring as escape cover for the spotted turtles in a wetland with a
firm (vs. the usually favored deeply mucky) substrate and only ten to
eighteen inches of water (mostly on the order of foot deep). It is
absolutely remarkable how quickly and completely they can vanish in
this melange, even at fingertip range from the one who would capture
them for identification… it never ceases to amaze me, despite my
long history with such escape-cum disappearances.

By the time I got the sedge mound on which the pair had been basking I
felt that one or the other might be ready to put his or her head above
water; maybe within my grasp (that means very close, as described
above). So I adopted my wait-and-watch mode, keeping still while
scanning the water round me, and looking into the few openings in the
underwater vegetation. Before long a male did surface, presumably he
who I had interrupted with my awkward movements in wrestling my way
through the shrubs. He was only a stride and a lunge from my right
hand, but I knew it would be all but impossible to make even such a
small move in time to grab him. He went into that “stare” – the only
way I can describe it – that I have found to be characteristic of
spotted and Blanding’s turtles. I have gotten great back pains from
keeping absolutely still and trying to wait out one of these turtles
in such a… vigilant trance? Only rarely have I succeeded in “out-
staring” one, having the turtle put his head down into the water and
grant me a second or so (or less) additional time in which to make my
capture-move. This has often been a hazardous lunge among twigs and
branches that at times has gotten me badly poked in the eye, or in the
early going, up to my shoulders and chin in ice water and muck.

I knew I could not endure the waiting-out on this occasion, so made my
futile move. The turtle vanished. My hand in the reedgrass came up
empty. I took a second step forward, and groped among the grasses, but
this, too,
has historically failed to produce a turtle in nearly all cases.
However, my left foot came down upon a turtle, and I felt I had him. I
reached down and pulled forth a spotted turtle, but it was a female,
so not the one I had attempted to capture. Three, perhaps four times
before over all of these years, I have found a spotted turtle with my
foot. As a boy in connecticut, in smaller pools and marshes with
abundant spotted turtles, I actually searched for them with my bare
feet – that strategy does not apply to these more northern wetlands of
my later years, not even in the exceptionally spotted-turtle-rich
Swale. I immediately recognized the turtle as “Bright Yellow”, one of
a handful of turtles to whom I have given a name; one I first found in
this remarkable vernal pool when she was five years old. I thought of
her as a precocious turtle, being large for her age, and of an age
some five years younger than most subadults I have found to migrate
here. And these have been few; it is very rare for me to find a
subadult in the Swale (”Reedgrass Pool” in SWAMPWALKER’S JOURNAL). She
is a particularly brilliantly marked turtle, with abundant bright
yellow spots and glowing orange head, neck, and leg markings. And she
is just as “Bright Yellow” as when I first saw her. At the time of
that first encounter I had read about a marvel of a very young Chinese
ballet dancer, whose name meant “Bright Yellow”; and I decided this
was too good a fit not to bestow a name. I have seen her in a number
seasons since that first finding, but not in the past three or four
years. As I recall, she was twenty one years old when I last saw her.

As I took great pleasure in being able to see her again and recorded
her in my notebook, I caught sight of a bit of a spotted turtle
carapace moving through sunken reedgrass, made a second lunge and
grasp, and this time came up with a male, in all probability he who
had escaped me. Another long-familiar turtle, first seen as an adult,
and so considerably older than the one I held in my hand. (There is
no way of ascertaining the age of a spotted turtle after eighteen
years or so.) Here was the “luck of Guido”, as I call it, manifest.
Two turtles sighted, that I did not think I would be able to take in
hand and identify, captured not by any great prowess, but by great
good fortune (for the capturer anyway, not those captured). But they
were immediately back in their realm. I think so often of the luck I
have had in my following the turtles through so many decades. Again on
this occasion I had to think I simply did not deserve to have such
pure luck one more time. But another time I was deeply grateful for it.

On the 28th of April I found four spotted turtles in the migrating
stream. And later in the afternoon, around five o’clock, a large
snapping turtle was near the end of his migration to the great beaver-
supported wetland distant from the Swale. This was a classic sighting
(I write of five making “the crossing” – luckily in this case not of a
road – in an hour and a half’s time in “Migrations”, SWAMPWALKER’S
JOURNAL). Here was a majestic snapping turtle of who knows how many
years, making again this critical overland journey, a necessary
seasonal movement that is fatal to so many turtles of so many species
in a world that has become so fragmented by roadways, cut into small
unsustainable pieces by them. There is something especially impressive
about these large turtles on these migrations following their
hibernations. Their carapaces are sometimes a clear slate blue,
sometimes covered with a patina of algae. This one, I can say
“gorgeous”, had massive carapace tinged with green algae along both
sides, and algal coating etched with lines from his or her brushy
passage; and a clear crest of the shallow dome that looked like
burnished plate… more moving than gorgeous actually, so shield-and-
warrior-like. Such a turtle is truly a warrior of the seasons, of time
and place.

SNAPPING TURTLES: I will give a slide-illustrated talk at
MainstreetBookends (Main Street, Warner, NH) on Friday, 27 May, at
7PM. No admission charge.