Column: Snappers invaded my garden and I don't mind

People sometimes complain about the troubles of gardening with clay. Some complain about sandy soil. I would be happy with either — just try gardening on bedrock!

Then last summer, I discovered the crack in the bedrock just 10 feet from the house. It is right at the edge where the ground drops 15 feet to the lake. Grass and wildflowers always grew there, but it had never before occurred to me that there would actually be a significant amount of dirt.

I dug.

One of the cracks is six inches wide, six feet long and three to 12 inches deep. Wow! Parallel to that is a wider and deeper crack. I soon transformed both into mini gardens. Herbs, lettuce, cucumbers, strawberries and, of course, some of the natural wildflowers now look pretty just outside my window.

Then came the snapper. It is egg laying time, you know. Truth be told, she usually climbs the steep rock to muck about in the dirt. She’s big.
She’s probably been digging here every year for the past several decades.

I don’t know if she ever did lay any eggs in the decades gone by, but she’s never left any eggs in all the years I have been watching. And that makes me sad. I’d love to have the chance to protect a snapper nest from the local fox.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to see the little ones emerge and run down the rock to the lake? Alas, it has not happened.

She’s been up twice in the last week, digging up bulbs, moving further along to dig up some of the grassy bits. I don’t mind. The space is way more important to her than it is to me.

She was there this morning for at least half an hour. I thought this might be the year for eggs to appear.

Surprisingly, a second turtle came out of the lake at the steepest part. She also climbed the 45-degree slope, and almost ended up at the same spot.

Seeing that it was already occupied, she turned around and headed back down. This second turtle dug around a little bit half-way down, where the slope is less steep, but there was nothing but moss to push around. No soil there.

Long after they both had gone, I went out to have a look. Nope. No eggs again this year. Maybe one of them will come back tomorrow for another try. Or maybe, I could fill one of the cracks with gravel? Maybe if the digging was easier, the eggs would come. Hmmm.

Snapping turtles are a species of special concern in Ontario. They face several challenges. Females are 17 to 20 years old before they begin to lay eggs. There is a high predation rate on the nests. Habitat loss and road mortality are taking a toll.

Learn more about turtles and other Ontario wild life at OntarioNature.org.

Viki Mather has been commenting for Northern Life on the natural world and life in Greater Sudbury since the spring of 1984.