Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Basking, Painted Turtles


Painted Turtles basking in the warm sunlight of a cool April day


I frequently see Painted Turtles exhibiting this behavior during sunny spring days. As turtles are cold blooded, they relish the warm rays of sunlight. When I first noticed this log it was covered with turtles basking in a line along its entire length. By the time I drew near enough for this shot, all had slipped quietly back into the water except for this pair.

A little research revealed that females are larger than males and that we are in the midst of their breeding season now. Most likely this is a guy and his favorite gal all snuggled up and quite hesitant to flee.

10 comments:

Janet said...

Delightful!

Meggie said...

Once again, Salty, a tidbit of information that I didn't know before. Thanks!

Stacey Olson said...

Great post Salty, i was wondering about the basking thing, until you mentioned breeding season.. great shot. Thanks for sharing as always

Sand said...

I love the turtles! They are such cool critters!

Tom said...

Love on a log.... good name for a book.. ha! great country capture Salty.

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Salty: Those tturtles are putting on quite the show with there necks extended. Great photo.

DeeMom said...

Great picture

Anonymous said...

Nice shot of the turtles. I don't get to see them around here anymore. I don't know why.

Lilli & Nevada said...

I love those turtles they are so big, we don't see turtles around here.

Unknown said...

I love the turtles! And I love all the duck pics. Esp. the bad hair day. lol, that was great.