Last Sunday we released our 3 turtles back to the wild. Zippy and Timmy are the latest in a long line of painted turtles rescued from dehydrating to death on the blacktop in the Shakopee office park where I work. Tobias is a little different - our one and only foray into snapping turtle ownership. (He was given to me by a colleague who has turtles hatching in his yard all the time). It's been really interesting to see the similarities and differences in the two types of turtles.

Painted turtles are cheeky and lively - they adapt quickly to new environments, learning to beg for food within a few days. They are extremely visual, spending a lot of time basking and alertly scanning the environment, and frequently zooming around the tank for exercise. Snapping turtles are bottom dwellers that rarely bask. Despite their fearsome appearance, they are actually shy and retiring. At one point we tried putting the little snapper in with Zippy. He immediately pulled into his shell and played dead, while Zippy zoomed over to check him out. Richard was afraid Tobias was going to get hurt, so we put him back in his own tank.

However, one thing that snappers know how to do is GROW. In the two pictures below you see the difference between a newborn and 5-month-old. We usually keep the painted turtles a couple of years, but if we tried that with Tobias we'd be looking at a Mysterious Tadpole type of situation before we knew it. Since Zippy is about two now and Timmy was a recent capture who didn't seem entirely happy in captivity, we decided to turn them all loose before our vacation.

So we took them over to Wood Lake Nature Center, which is turtle heaven. We found a mucky little backwater close to one of the boardwalks, shallow enough that we could observe them for a while before they disappeared. Sure enough, little Timmy frantically submarined away at top speed and hid under an overhanging branch, obviously glad to be back where he belonged. Zippy immediately began a leisurely exploration, happily snarfing up every floating object that looked like food (and spitting out the ones that turned out to be chips of bark). Tobias, however, immediately sank straight to the bottom and started stomping deliberately through the mud like an astronaut in a space suit. It hadn't really occurred to me that snappers walk along the bottom rather than soaring gracefully like the painteds, but it was obvious that this was what he'd been waiting for his whole life. Zippy looked back at us quizzically a few times but showed no interest in coming out of the water or begging for food. This was a bit of a relief, because he's probably the tamest turtle we've ever had and I was a little worried that we might have extinguished his natural instincts with our loving care. But no worries - turtles run on instinct, not intellect. When I checked back one more time after a bathroom break, all 3 turtles had disappeared into the cattails.

guppiecat joined us for this special event, bringing along his camera. I was hoping he could immortalize our little sweeties with an impressive portrait or two, but the turtles were a little overwhelmed by the great outdoors and weren't interested in posing. He was hoping to get a few shots of them in their "natural habitat," but for these guys their natural habitat for most of their lives has been an aquarium. They did seem happy when dropped into murky brown water, but it's a little hard to get pictures of them at that point.

After a year in captivity, Bucky was getting restless. She'd grown at least an inch in shell size, so maybe her tank was seeming a little too small now.  She seemed to be spending less time luxuriantly basking and more time scrabbling at the side of the tank as if she was trying to get out. So we decided to return her to the wild, in the heat of summer so she'd have plenty of time to get used to the outdoors again before winter set in. We decided on Grass Lake, an obscure, marshy little lake in the southwest corner of the Kenny neighborhood, just this side of the Richfield border. It's full of wildlife and completely cut off from any busy roads. Not that easy to find, as a matter of fact. But we finally located it, took a few last snapshots, and set her free. Live long and prosper, little turtle!

	What are YOU looking at? Bucky's last day as an indoor turtle.
	Bucky in the grass - June 28, 2009 She doesn't know it, but she's about to take her last car trip.
	Bucky doing her best dinosaur impression - June 28, 2009 Grass Lake is just down the hill. Maybe she can smell it.
	Grass Lake - Bucky's new home - June 28, 2009 A scummy little lake full of algae and snails. Turtle heaven.

We brought Bucky inside in mid-September as the weather was getting nippy and she seemed to be getting kind of sleepy outside. Richard fixed her up a big new tank near the window with two basking bulbs: one for heat and one for daylight spectrum light. She adjusted quickly, showing interest in her new environment. She wasn't as active as shed' been in the summer, but she swam around in her tank and observed game parties with interest. Every day she climbed up on her pile of bricks and basked for 2-3 hours, which is a key component of turtle health. And she looked just fine - clear eyed and alert.

But she would not eat. In the summer she was a voracious, if slightly picky eater. She wouldn't eat vegies at all, but eagerly gobbled up worms, hamburger, chicken, shrimp, and any other kind of raw meat. She was always begging for food and would eat a couple of times a day (which is actually a bit excessive for a reptile). But as fall came on her activity level and appetite declined. And once we moved her inside she just stopped eating. She would swim over and sniff at food when it was dropped in her tank, but wouldn't take a bite. Richard, bless his heart, had dug up a bunch of earthworms and planted them in a jar of dirt to save for Bucky's winter treats, but she wouldn't even eat worms (her favorite food) and there was never any turtle poop in the tank, which is a pretty good indication that nothing was happening in her digestive system.

We added a tank heater and warmed the water up to 72 degrees. She seemed to kind of like the heating element and took to sleeping next to it, but still nothing was going in or out. On Sunday I finally saw her swim down to a sad little piece of decomposing hamburger that had been left in her tank and ... she ate it!  I told Richard, who was all excited. He's the nurturing type and felt bad that all his turtle meals had been rejected. The next day he successfully fed her half a shrimp (which is quite a lot of food for a 4-inch turtle). Yay! Maybe we can stop worrying about her now.

I know that reptiles can go a long time without eating, but it's been TWO MONTHS!

I slipped in a couple of extra shots for the final day of the photo blog. Richard and I had a great bike trip in Wisconsin, and there were just too many good pictures. Well, okay, I admit it: I just have this thing for bridge pictures.

The weather was fantastic and the trail was surprisingly varied and attractive for such an easy ride. We saw lots of wildlife: not only the Sandhill cranes (pictured), but dozens of adorably confused baby bunnies and at least as many lounging, half-naked college students performing various rituals with giant inner tubes. We were disappointed to discover that it IS in fact possible to find a town in Wisconsin so small that it doesn't have a tavern! However, that doesn't mean you can't buy alcohol. With hindsight, I wish I'd taken a picture of the astonishing wall of hard liquor behind the counter of the tiny local grocery/convenience store. Fortunately, Richard had packed us a nice little lunch, which we washed down with cold beer and hard lemonade from the local "grocery."

I explain the photo project here.

Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

( Today's photos. )

Mr. Sexy Downloaded from Internet. Despite lack of hygiene, this is one sexy male turtle: note the length of the foreclaws!	Pair of turtles Downloaded from Internet. Female in front. She is not only larger but has a high-domed carapace compared to the male.

I knew she was a painted turtle because of the vivid orange and yellow markings. According to the Internets, the only painted turtle species in Minnesota is the Western Painted Turtle. It seems to be the prettiest of the 3 species, with the most elaborate markings on the plastron (lower shell):

Yesterday I took a little midday bike ride around the nature paths and drainage ponds of lovely Shakopee and found a little painted turtle crossing the bike path from one slough to another. I took her home to Richard, who always seems a trifle forlorn without some livestock to care for. I must admit, he didn't seem quite as enthusiastic as I'd hoped when I called and asked him to prepare an aquarium on short notice ("But I have flowers to plant!"). But sure enough, when I got home there was a pretty little tank set up and waiting for a turtle occupant, with a basking platform at one end and some random foliage floating at the other end to provide a feeling of shelter.

Bucky, as I'd taken to calling her, was delighted to get back in the water after a few hours in a cardboard box. So far she's shown no interest in the basking platform and has spent all her time floating under the leaves with just her nose sticking up or scrabbling at the puzzling glass walls. She didn't seem at all interested in food. I'm not sure if she was too excited to eat or just wasn't hungry. How often do turtles eat, anyway?

She's a very lively turtle with high self-esteem. Anyway, not one of those shy turtles that cowers in her shell. She pulled in and hid for maybe 5 minutes after I picked her up, but by the time I got back to the QLogic building she was craning her neck to look around and trying to climb out of my hand. She was very active in the cardboard box, too. I picked her up and talked to her frequently and she didn't seem the least bit scared or aggressive. But if somebody unfamiliar held her she seemed to detect the difference immediately, and pulled back into her shell for a few seconds to think about it. I don't know how they do it, but turtles do seem to distinguish between one person and another. I would have expected that we all look alike to them, but we saw similar behavior with the other pet turtles we've had in the past.

I don't know if we'll keep her or not - it depends on how well she adjusts. At the moment she's in a relatively small tank sitting by the fountain in the back yard. It just seems like she'd be better off outside where she can get some actual sunshine. We don't have a lot of large predators in the city, unless raccoons are a danger. Anyway, she made it through the night.