Eastern Spiny Softshell turtle

I was thrilled to find this little turtle in the sand at the beach edge of Clark Lake in Jackson County.  I have seen Eastern Shiny Softshell (Apalone spinifera spinifera) turtles many times but always a lot larger.  Never a new hatchling.  As a child my father would catch much larger ones and we marveled at how they looked.  I recall they were quite docile. 

Eastern Spinys like to bury themselves in the sand and as soon as I released it back into the lake it buried itself in the exact same place I found it.  I think it is pretty obvious, but just in case some eyes can't see it, I have included the photo below.  The arrow points to its buried head.

After releasing this little turtle, I walked back to the road and found a squished new hatchling.  I have a photo but won't include it here.

Later, I saw a three inch in diameter, so a small turtle, crossing the road when two trucks, drivers completely oblivious, zoomed over it - but missed hitting it!  I raced out to the road before the next car or truck came by, picked it up and released it into the lake.  It wasted no time disappearing into the water and sand.  I should have taken a photo but was only thinking of rescue.  It was a Northern Map turtle (Graptemys geographica).  There are two other kinds of map turtles, False Northern Map (Graptemys pseudogeographica pseudogeographica) - now there's a name - and Ouachita Map (Graphemes ouachitensis) turtles, neither of which are found in Michigan.

Always remember and take the time to stop and rescue any turtle from the road (it might require stopping traffic); and yes, even snappers. When you see those huge snappers resting on a log, or head above water looking around, or crossing the road, remember they are probably 100 years old or very near to that age.

Want to learn more about turtles and turtle rescue?  Cannot recommend enough:  Of Time and Turtles:  Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell by Sy Montgomery and illustrations by Matt Patterson, 2023, Mariner Books, HarperCollins Publishers.

For that matter, I recommend any book by Sy Montgomery!

I found an essay in The Art of the Personal Essay compiled by Phillip LaPate titled The Courage of Turtles by Edward Hoagland.  I looked on-line and found a blog titled The Value of Sparrows: Writing of a Christian Mystic which reprinted Edward Hoagland's essay The Courage of Turtles.  The Courage of Turtles is a beautifully written and swift moving essay, but it's also a sad essay.  For many of us, we won't be surprised by what Hoagland writes.  Especially those of us who know and love turtles.  As the oldest of eight, turtles were the only childhood pets I was allowed to have.  Dogs and cats were too much in a small house with ten people and, anyway, my parents were not pet people.  So I counted myself lucky when each summer we went turtle hunting with my father who was an excellent swimmer himself and also excellent at catching turtles, even those swimming across a lake of open water.  When we got one, usually a Painted turtle, of suitable size to fit comfortably in a large tub, I would get to keep it for the summer.  I didn't know if they were male or female.  I fed them raw hamburger which they ate voraciously.  I placed a rock in the center of the tub for them to climb on and sunbath as turtles love to do.  But I don't recall that they ever did much sunbathing as they were always trying to escape their tub, constantly swimming and scratching against the enamel sides, and this saddened me.  At the end of the summer I returned them to the lake where each wasted no time swimming swiftly away.