Choice Morsels

Today's Garden Pics are various Eastern Box Turtle friends that visit my yard: I caught this shot one rainy day last week: This block path runs along the South wall bed. Actually it channels water away from my front door to my back yard and this Boxie girl was very intently toddling her way down it to my back yard. I happen to know she is female--but only because it's mating season and well, that's helped me identify who's male and who's female. This one has already mated. Interesting fact : a female box turtle can lay fertile eggs from one mating session for the next 4 years! And she is completely able to choose when she's ready to lay. Also the temperature at the time eggs are laid determines whether the hatchings are all male or all female! This shot is one of my regular visitors enjoying a cooling soak in my "birdbath" dish. They like to get in on a hot day for 15 or 20 minutes. This Boxie has albino face markings and he's been hanging around m...

I have a number of Eastern Box Turtles who live in the vicinity of my yard. One of them has albino markings on it's neck and face, whom I've seen visiting my yard for years now.  This morning I saw Albino Face walking across the back yard near the end of my patio,clearly headed for the ground level birdbath I have out, which is a large shallow plastic plant-pot saucer. Everyone uses it for liquid refreshment during hot summer weather--- cats, squirrels, birds and box turtles. Anyway, Albino Face crawled into the dish of water, then just settled down in it toward the back, head resting on the dish rim for about 5 minutes in the cool water, then crawled out and left. I captured this shot right after Albino Face got in the birdbath and  paused, it's eye on me, to see what I was going to do.  I was standing behind the grill, took the picture then went back in the house, so Albino Face could enjoy a spa moment in peace. Box ...