If you are like most people, you have a grudging admiration for bird-watchers. You like what they do. You
see birders heading out into the countryside with their field guides and their walking sticks and their
binoculars and you feel a twinge of envy. You see the competition and comradeship that they share and
envy that too. You see birders come back from an outing, smiling and self-satisfied, and you think, “Hey!
Maybe I should try that...”
The problem of course, is that bird watchers are completely insane.
Have you ever actually GONE bird watching? The weather is always miserable - cold, rainy or windy. If
you want to see any of the really interesting birds, you have to tramp to hell and back across hedges,
swamps and vast expanses of thorn bushes. When you finally do find a good spot, you have to stay in one
place, absolutely silent and unmoving. When you think you see a worthwhile bird, by the time you’ve
whipped your binoculars up to your eyes, missed your eyes, bashed yourself in the forehead and focused
the binoculars, what you see is a small, grey blob flitting behind a tree, WAY too quickly for you to identify
it. And, in the end, even if you DO manage to see a bird, zoom in on it, open your field guide AND identify
it, it will never be an interesting type of bird that you know anything about, like a peacock or a flamingo; it
will be something you’ve never heard of, like a Northern Connecticut Grey Grommet Thrush or a Septic
Tank Grackle.
[The Writer and his editors would like to take this opportunity to point out that bird watchers are amazing
people - smart, tough, ecologically concerned, and possessed of a fantastic sense of humor - just the sort of
people who NEVER write indignant letters in response to Human Interest features in their local papers.]
No, what you need is some sort of hobby that will take you out into the great outdoors, will require little
skill and even less effort and will not take over your life like bird watching, marathon running or golf.
Have you considered turtle watching?
No. Of course you haven’t. What kind of nut goes out watching for turtles?
But think about it for a moment. This is the time of year when you actually have a good shot at seeing
turtles in any great numbers. For most of the year, you can walk around all over the place, and unless you
go out of your way to notice them, you probably won’t see a single turtle. (Turtles are very good at not
being noticed.) But right now, you have a decent shot at stalking one.
Ever since late last Fall, turtles have been hibernating in the mud at the bottoms of ponds and marshes. At
this time of year though, as the last of the ice disappears from the water, some sort of signal makes its way
down to the sleeping turtles, who slowly dig themselves out of the mud and swim to the surface, where they
look for a place to warm up.
Turtles are reptiles - that means that they are ectothermic, or cold-blooded. There aren’t able to regulate
their own body temperature. If they want to warm up, they have to go someplace warm - usually out into
the sun to bask. If they find themselves getting too warm, they have to get out of the sun and into
the shade or back into cool water. As they come out of hibernation, turtles desperately want to warm up.
Until they’ve spent a week or two getting completely warmed up, turtles are even slower than usual - easy
enough for people as clumsy and lazy as ourselves to get close to.
In his book, The Year Of The Turtle, David Carroll describes turtles’ need to sunbathe:
“Because they are the most numerous, and conceal their love of the sun the least, the most familiar baskers
are the painted turtles. They line exposed logs by the dozens and sometimes pile up two or three deep
when sunning spaces are limited. These turtles seem confident of their wariness, quickness and swimming
ability and usual make little attempt to be hidden about their sunning practices . ...Turtles need sunlight to
metabolize vitamins in their diet; their extensions of head, neck, legs and feet (which are often turned over,
bottoms to the sun) facilitate this and add an elaborate quality to their poses”
Because turtles are fairly easy to approach right now, it is easy to “test drive” turtle watching as a hobby.
You can observe the turtles casually a few times, then, if you find that you are really interested, you will
have already gotten a feel for their habits and where to look for them. As time goes by, if you start to feel
more ambitious, you can start making expeditions into the woods and ponds in more remote areas.
But you don’t have to - that’s the cool thing about turtles. They are fairly mellow, and watching them is a
fairly stress-free activity.
According to Becky Suomala, a Naturalist with the New Hampshire Audubon Society, the two most
common species of turtle in southern New Hampshire are the Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina)
and the Eastern Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta picta). “You mostly see snapping turtles crossing
roads looking for places to lay their eggs,” she says. “Most turtles lay in the same place every year. They
like sandy, loamy soil, so you might imagine why they like roadsides.”
While the snapping turtles’ fondness of roadside soil poses obvious dangers to the turtles themselves, it
does have the advantage of bringing the turtle to you - you don’t have to go looking for it. If you do
happen to come across a snapping turtle who is trying to cross the road, it is probably best not to fool
around with her - she knows where she wants to go and will keep plodding along until she gets there. On
the other hand - if you don’t want her to get smashed into the pavement by a lumber truck and can’t spare
the time to hold up traffic until she has crossed the road, you can try to carry her. Be careful however -
snapping turtles don’t pull their heads into their shells like other turtles when they are threatened and have
long, flexible necks that allow them to deliver a SERIOUS bite. “Snappers must be handled by the base of
the tail or the very edge of their rear carapace,” says Carroll. “They can extend their heads and necks far
back along the sides, or even top, of their shells. Also, large snappers can be injured if carried by the tail
and must be supported or managed by the back end of the shell.”
The good news is that the turtle you are most likely to see, the Eastern Painted Turtle, is much more laid-
back and easy to spot as it basks on rocks and tree limbs in small ponds. Because of the way water drains
from roads and highways, there are a lot of small marshes and ponds just off the sides of roads that are full
of painted turtles this time of year. Two especially good turtle watching sites are less than fifty feet from
major roads and are incredibly easy to approach.
One small pond is located in Keene, just off route 101, near Optical Avenue. There is a small pond that lies
directly between the road and Timken Aerospace (MPB). The pond, which apparently doesn’t have a
name, provides an excellent habitat for turtles. It is fed by the Ashuelot River, so the water level stays fairly
consistent throughout the year. It has a muddy bottom where the turtles can hibernate over the winter, a lot
of direct sunlight for basking, and plenty of sandy soil near the roadbed for them to lay their eggs. There are
even convenient culverts so that the turtles can cross the road without being smashed to splinters. Painted
turtles can be seen basking on rocks in this pond in some pretty serious numbers.
This is a good pond for the casual turtle observer. You can look over at it as you drive along the road. If
you see a good number of turtles, you can pull off to the side of the road onto one of the turnoffs near the
old railroad bridge and walk to the pond in less than a minute.
If you are traveling to Concord, there is another excellent turtle pond there:
Take I-89 South, until it ends. Get off the interstate at Bow Junction. Go left at the first stoplight, as if to go
to downtown Concord. Directly ahead on your right - perhaps a hundred yards or so - there is a small
pond, directly across the road from Grappone Auto Sales. This tiny pond - it’s called “Ma Willy’s Pond”
by the way - is connected by marshland to a larger State Conservation Area nearby, and is usually teeming
with turtles. The pond itself belongs to Grappone’s, who are happy to let turtle watchers use their parking
lot directly adjacent to the pond.
Turtle watching has many of the same benefits as bird watching - you still get out into the sunshine and you
still get to brag about what you’ve seen, but it has several advantages for the lazy, timid or time-stressed
enthusiast. The weather is always good - (there’s no point in being out there otherwise - the turtles only
bask when it’s sunny) , you don’t have to devote a huge part of your day waiting for the turtles to make
their appearance (they’re either there, or they aren’t) and the only equipment you really need is a pair of
binoculars and perhaps a thermos of martinis.
