painting painted turtles

To anticipate spring, many of us tend to look for the green shoots of crocuses and daffodils, or to tree buds bursting open and the return of migratory birds. But a wonderfully reliable and lesser known sign of spring in some regions are when the vernal pools return after the first heavy rainfalls. An army of ritual breeders--salamanders and wood frogs--mate like mad and lay their gelatinous egg masses in communal deposits in these ephemeral pools, nearly all at once. Tiny thumb-sized peepers start their annual whistling concerts around the same time. Painted turtles and bull frogs literally defrost and emerge from their frozen state from under leaf litter and moist layers of mud. Dragonfly and fairy shrimp larvae start wriggling in the shallow waters.

I love watching painted turtles poke their heads out of the watery puddles and climb onto fallen tree logs. They, too, are sick and tired of the cold New England weather. Who says turtles are slow? When it comes to finding the sunniest waterfront real estate on the pool, these suckers are fast.

Image: looking up from the bottom of a pool at the colorful underside of a painted turtle swimming on the surface. I know. It looks like I painted turtle roadkill.