Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Blanding's turtle sighted

It was an interesting day. Morels showed up, the dogs treed a sick raccoon, and ran into this guy at the edge of the cornfield this afternoon. I haven't seen one for a couple of years.

They can live to be 80-90, and keep kicking out youngins all those years after age 20 or so. Shell shape, and yellow underside of the neck and chin are the giveaways. I thought it was kinda cool.

Cool!!!

Thanks for sharing that. Cool turtle.

Way cool, it is my understanding that turtles don’t age, they just keep on ticking until some misfortune overtakes them.

Nice. I helped one across a road a few years back. That’s the only one that I recall seeing.

You may want to do a search for “reporting rare turtles”. There are several agencies that track sightings to confirm or extend their known range.

That’s cool. I like turtles.

I was reading a story the other day about a lady that lost her pet turtle in 1991 or 92 and she thought he’d run away. Fast forward 30 years and she was cleaning out the home she grew up in. Her dad had passed and she was going through stuff in the attic looking for old pictures when she came across her turtle “Manuela”. The turtle was bigger but perfectly healthy. They think he was eating termite larvae and survived all those years in the attic.

A friend of mine’s mom has two box turtles that return to her patio every spring. She knows they’re the same ones because they have numbers painted on their backs. She puts out popcorn for them starting in late April and they always return to eat it.

Cool part is they’ve been coming back and her kids, grandkids, and now great grandkids have been using them for the turtle race at the town 4th of July bash every year, hence the numbers. I think they’re getting close to 25 years they’ve been showing up.

Box turtles? Making more box turtles.

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Here's a twist. The picture below was taken 5-27-20 in my front yard. Same turtle? Looks like it could be. I had to look for the older pics for a while.

i remember once when i was a kid in PENN and my dad saw a turtle crossing a country road. No traffic, so my dad got out and picked it up and walked about 50 yards into the woods to release it. Someone had carved their initials into its shell, for some stupid reason. I believe it was a painted turtle, but not sure

I don't know the names of turtles...but I know I like them all - very cool creatures!

Mostly we have gopher turtles around here. They’re great as long as they’re not living on my property.

Mariners of old would gather up all those big tropical tortoises and turn them upside down in the ship's hold where they'd remain viable food for months.

Very cool!

Tortoises are incredibly cool creatures

Any turtle that is terrestrial is actually a tortoise.
BoX Turtles that are common in the east should have been named "Box Tortoises."

We used to have community races every year. I think the adults enjoyed them as much as their children.

Nice. I like turtles, too. Whenever I see a tortoise crossing a country road I always pull over, run out and grab it, and drop it off on the side it was trying to get to. Lots of them are obviously quite old, too.

I've moved 3 box turtles from the roads so far this year. We typically have one lay eggs in the yard, along with the river cooters and painted turtles and the occasional snapping turtle.

That's very cool. Wikipedia says they're semi-aquatic and that this is their mating season. Wonder if it is looking for love.

Turtles are interesting creatures. Always fun to spot them doing what they do. Here’s some keeping warm.