Look who showed up finally!
I was starting to think I'd made a terrible mistake in deciding to overwinter the yellow-bellied slider in my backyard pond - I thought she'd be happier there than in a dinky tank in my basement, but if I'd known we were going to have one of the coldest, longest winters in decades I might have reconsidered. Still, my pond pump kept running even through the harshest days and I had a heater that kept some of it ice free, so it should have held oxygen, and the closely related red-eared sliders at another park that lost power in a snowstorm for four days and ended up frozen solid in blocks of ice thawed out and were just fine, so I wasn't too terribly worried, but I kept checking the pond every day for her as things warmed up and turtles were emerging and basking in all the ponds in the park...and still no turtle. I wondered if maybe she'd crawled out into the yard earlier in the year before I'd noticed her and frozen to death?
Just about the size and shape of turtle bites:
And there she was! Lurking under the lilies! I hauled her out; she was not thrilled, lol.
She's now back in the wading pool, gobbling down worms and turtle pellets and looking very healthy - yay!
