Turtle crossings #phenology

Over the past week or so the Better Half [BH] has several times reported noticing turtles crossing a local road. This morning, we saw two Blanding's turtles, one on a township gravel road, the other, several miles away,on a paved county road. We stopped at each sighting to help ensure the road crossing was successful. The first turtle turned as we approached, hissed at us, and hustled (for a turtle) the rest of the way across the road and into the roadside grasses. The second turtle simply withdrew into its shell so we picked it up at shell's rear edges and carried it to the side of the road toward which it seemed headed. Both turtles had several leeches attached to their shells. Does anyone have a clue if leeches can suck blood through a turtle's shell?

[UPDATE: Three families of leeches, the Piscicolidae, the Hirudinidae, and the Glossiphoniidae, contain representatives that are blood-feeding, usually temporary ectoparasites of aquatic turtles, such as Placobdella spp. (Siddal and Desser 1991). Turtle leeches may be a significant component of macroinvertebrate diversity in some freshwater habitats. 

p. 26 Blanding’s Turtle ( Emydoidea blandingii ): A Technical Conservation Assessment]

Blanding's turtle crossing gravel road

Photo by J. Harrington

Although turtles move from one habitat to another during the period they're not actually overwintering, we wonder if some of what we've been seeing can also be attributable to basking on roads to raise their body temperature after a series of unseasonal cool nights? There's a Turtle Crossing sign on one east-west road through our section of Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area (we keep meaning to take a photo) but not where we saw either Blanding's turtle this morning. Perhaps the Carlos Avery management team could consider adding a few more signs around the perimeter of the Sunrise River pools. As is often the case in real life, we've seen more Blanding's in places without Turtle Crossing signs than anywhere near where the signs are.

leech on Blanding's turtle shell

Photo by J. Harrington

Anyhow, we were pleased to notice that, when we retraced our morning route several hours later on our way back from "The Cities," there were no signs of squashed turtles. At least for today, our efforts to help little old lady(?) turtles cross the street may actually have been helpful.

           On Finding a Turtle Shell in Daniel Boone National Forest

By Jeff Worley

This one got tired

of lugging his fortress

wherever he went,

was done with duck and cover

at every explosion

through rustling leaves

of fox and dog and skunk.

Said au revoir to the ritual

of pulling himself together. . .  

I imagine him waiting

for the cover of darkness

to let down his hinged drawbridge.

He wanted, after so many

protracted years of caution,

to dance naked and nimble

as a flame under the moon—

even if dancing just once

was all that the teeth

of the forest would allow.

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