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Hey everyone! I wanted to officiallly introduce pictures into the photo gallery here of my sweetie, Rigby. She's a 6", 8 year old RES who, like many, was named before her gender was actually established, but the name fit her so it stayed.

These are my favorite pictures of my lovely lady in our outdoor pond, along with two pictures of a wild box turtle my dad found nesting in the tiger lilies in our front yeard. She hung around for two days, and I started calling her Lily (it's kind of a curse - you hang around our house for a while and you're gonna get named). It turns out Lily was actually finding a good nesting spot to lay 4 eggs, of which I also have a picture. To see something like a wild turtle laying eggs was incredible. I can't believe how they fit inside her, but they did!

The last picture is of two box turtles my brother-in-law found in the road. We snapped the picture before letting go them on their way in the woods a little, away from the road but in the direction they were headed. Call it traffic control for turtles ;-D


Rigby smiling for the Camera.


All stretched out.


Looking for more bugs (or banana).


One of Rigby's favorite spots, under the fountain. ("Look Ma! I'm "under water"!)


Lily, finally found the right spot and digging the hole for her eggs. Around 2:00 in the afternoon.


Lily at about 10:30 at night getting ready to cover her four eggs up.


Off Road Crusiers.

Very nice pictures, thank you for sharing! Is Rigby really just 6 inches long? I thought she was 8 or 9 for sure!

Whoa! That was great! Thanks for posting those pics. Your turtle is adorable especially where she's smiling for the camera (you should enter that one in the photo contest). But those pictures of the box turtle are really cool! You're very lucky to have them living all around you like that. And laying eggs right in your own front yard, how cool is that?!

Rigby looks soooo content!

Omgoodness!! Rigby's face in that first picture is priceless!! that pond set up seems so nice! I wish I had a home of my own so I could make something up like that in my backyard- but i live in an apartment so that's not happening! lol All these pictures are so cute!

Smoofish, have you thought about entering some of these photos in the photo contest?

Those were nice to look at, thanks for sharing. They sure have the good life!

Scripta, yep, she's only six inches long...for now. I think with all of the extra room the pond is giving her she's starting another growth spurt. I'm going to have to work on getting her new indoor aquarium for winter.

SpotsMama, no, I haven't thought about entering the photo cntest, but DavidY sugested that too! I'll definitely look into that, I guess!

Go for it!

Wow! Love the pics, especially the one of Lily laying her eggs. That's a rare moment and you got to share it with her.....I'm so jealous! Did you destroy the eggs or are you allowing them to hatch? Lily looks like a real sweetheart!!!

It was an amazing moment to see Lily and her eggs. I love Lily's coloring -- I'd never really seen a Box turtle marked like her before. And we're definitely going to allow the eggs to hatch. I can't wait -- I have it marked on the calendar and I've done some research on how long the incubation period for the eggs normally is so I know when to really look for the hatchlings. Even if I don't actualy see them, knowing if/when they've hatched will be exciting enough. I just have to make sure our dogs and other predators don't get to the nest.

Love Rigby's mug (and my fingers started itching when I saw that one loose scute).

Lily's a beauty---glad you're going to try to hatch the eggs. Cover the nest with a square of hardware cloth to prevent predators from digging them up (I've used a wire basket as well). Check it frequently, especially when it comes near hatching time so you can remove the hardware cloth and they can leave the nest.

Thanks for the tip, Marisa. I had read about placing wire mesh over the nest but was wary about disturbing it. We do have a lot of wildlife that would find a turtle nest very interesting, however, so tomorrow I'll work on something to protect it.
I had a very exciting moment this evening in relation to the nest. I went to check on it and make sure nothing had disturbed it so far, and while peeking into all of the lilies, I see these beautiful bronze eyes staring up at me! Lily was still there! I was surprised and a bit worried about her, but she seems in good health and spirits, so I let her be and snapped a couple of more pictures. I'm so excited she's kind of taken up residence in our front yard. Knowing I can step out our front door and probably see a wild turtle (and possibly her hatchlings!!) is very exciting for me since they've always held my fascination!

And I know what you mean about itchy fingers. Thankfully when I picked Rigby up after taking the pictures, it came right off and her shell is all smooth again. She had a couple of more come off the previous day, which is what's leading me to think a growth spurt is on the way.

That's great that she is sticking around like that! We have a bunch of resident garter snakes that live all around my house and I see their babies every year. They're pretty cool. But I would love to have a couple of boxies living in my yard like that. That's the best way to enjoy them too is when they are wild, able to come and go as they please. The problem with most of my animals is that they would just go...

You won't disturb the nest as long as you don't dig into it. I spent a summer a few years ago "guarding" a nest on the front lawn. I would cover it with a wire basket at night to protect it and take it off during the day for sun. We had some really rainy weeks that summer and to help regulate how much moisture the soil got, I also covered it for parts of those times as well. In early fall, 5 hatchlings marched out of the nest.


BTW, those shedding scutes do not indicate a growth spurt (and that's good).