Well, it was another perfect day the other day so it was off to Eat Park for Gavyn (phenomenal grandson) and I to hit "Eat Park," only this time, we brought a camera. There were lots of turtles out but nowhere near as many as the last trip in December. Still...it was a good day for turtle watching as the following picture shows.
Once out on the dock we began looking for turtles. The first to show up was a nice female Florida Cooter (Pseudemys floridana peninsularis). We've seen her before. She was curios and approached the dock to check out what we were doing. Last year there were some people feeding them some chicken so I'm sure she was looking for a handout.
Shortly after she arrived an algae covered male Peninsular Cooter showed up. He wasn't out to court the female. He was just there checking out what was going on at the dock.
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From out on the lake another chelonian looked on. It was a Red-Eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) and from a distance, it looked to be a female.
As she swam around the dock she settled in by the male Peninsular Cooter. No, she wasn't there to breed with the male slider (that's a topic for another post), she was there to see if he was getting any food that she wasn't getting.
She hadn't missed a thing as we hadn't fed them anything. Once the three turtles continued hovering in the nice sun-warmed water it was time to give them a treat so Gavyn opened the bag of cat food I handed to him and fed them the few pieces that were in the bag. We purposely only brought a little because they are wild turtles and need to forage and hunt for their food most of the time.
It didn't take but a couple seconds before a fairly large Florida Softshell (Apalone Ferox) showed up to bully his way into the tiny morsels of food being offered.
Amazingly the Soft shell Turtle was very gentle, not snapping at any of the other turtles though definitely trying to snatch up most of the food. It was kind of comical to watch. After all the food was gone (it only took them a couple minutes, if that, to gobble it all up) they still stayed by the dock area swimming around. This allowed several new people walking the boardwalks to see three species of native Florida turtles up close and personal. After a little while Gavyn and I left, taking with us the satisfaction of..."Another Great Eat Park Day."
Have a Wonderful Day!!!
The "Creature"
