Eastern Mud Turtle Walking in Natco Park

The other day, I saw my first reptile of the year. It was an Eastern Mud Turtle walking slowly across a nature trail, not far from a small pool of freshwater, in Natco Park in Hazlet Township.  

Both the bright sunshine and gentle westerly breezes created a beautiful spring morning for a walk. With approximately 260 acres of land, Natco Park is the largest parcel of open space in Hazlet Township, a suburban municipality located near Raritan Bay. The park gets the name "Natco" from its former land owner, the National Fireproofing Company (also known as "NatCo"). In the 1930s, the company mined clay in the lake area, and manufactured bricks and tile on Rose Lane, near Highway 36.

In 1978, Hazlet Township with help from NJ's Green Acres Program, acquired the land to help save it from encroaching residential development. That was a smart move. Today, Natco Park is an oasis of plant and animal life within suburbia.  A mixture of deciduous swamps, upland pine oak forest,  freshwater wetlands, vernal pools, and small streams has created perhaps one of the most botanically diverse public parks in the Bayshore region of Monmouth County.

It has been awhile since I was last in Natco Park. Yet, it didn't take long after I arrived to be treated to the sight of a little Mud Turtle basking in the 50 degree F. morning sun. The small turtle was only about 3 or 4 inches long. It most likely had just woken up after an intense sleep or hibernation. Perhaps still a bit groggy. The last time this turtle saw land was back in October 2012. Eastern Mud Turtles will  burrow  1 to 3 feet deep into the mud every fall and stay there over winter. Come April, the turtles will dig out and start to warm up their bodies under a rising sun.

Turtles are "cold-blooded" animals. They are unable to generate their own body heat to stay warm and digest their food, so they need to warm themselves by basking in the sun or cool themselves by seeking shade or swimming in a cool body of water.

The sight of an Eastern Mud Turtle was a total surprise to me. Although I knew Mud Turtles existed around the region, this was the first time I had seen one in Natco Park, let alone the urban-suburban environment of Raritan Bay and Lower New York Bay. It was the highlight of the day for sure!

For its petite size, mud turtles are pretty adaptable. They have to be in order to reside around here. They can live in fresh or brackish water, including marshes, small ponds, and even wet ditches and fields. If their much loved pond or waterway dries up during the summer, then they just pack up and wander over land to another body of water or burrow into the mud to sleep off the summer. This adaptability is one reason why turtles as a group of animals have been swimming and walking on Earth for over 200 million years. 

At first the little critter hid inside its dark brown unadorned shell, scared to come out. For good reason, I probably looked like a giant scary heron about ready to gobble it up. It didn't take long, though, for the tiny turtle to stick its head out and take a curious peek at me as I was taking its picture. After awhile it didn't mind my presence at all as it walked around the trail and eventually towards a small pool of freshwater. Almost certainly the turtle was seeking a mate to generate another generation of Mud Turtles in Natco Park.

Even though little Mud Turtles spend most of their time in the water, all reptiles must leave the water to lay eggs. Females may travel long distances to find a safe place to nest, sometimes over a 1,000 feet away. Eggs are laid in a shallow hole in the ground covered with soil and left to be warmed by the sun. If the eggs are not eaten by a raccoon, fox, or another hungry animal, the baby Mud Turtles will hatch in the late summer, early fall, or may overwinter in the nest.

It's not an easy life to be a turtle in an urban-suburban environment. Many turtles are killed on roads and highways as they move from one habitat to another, suburban wildlife including raccoons, skunks, rats, and foxes prey heavily on the turtle eggs and hatchlings, and the removal of turtles by people as pets can decimate a local turtle population by decreasing turtle partners to mate. The greatest threats, however, are from water pollution and habitat loss, which destroy important areas for feeding, nesting, or basking. 

To make sure little Mud Turtles and other reptiles survive in your neighborhood make sure to watch for turtles crossing the road while driving, especially during May and June when females are seeking to lay eggs, do not disturb turtles that are nesting in your garden or yard, and if you find a turtle in the wild, don't take it home as a pet. Always leave wild animals wild. Most importantly, help to protect open spaces and wild places that turtles and a diversity of wildlife call home in an ever stressful and increasing hectic urban-suburban environment.

I wish the tiny Mud Turtle well in Natco Park. For now at least, it was a good spring sign of life.

For more information, pictures and year-round sightings of wildlife in or near Sandy Hook Bay, please check out my blog entitled, Nature on the Edge of New York City at http://www.natureontheedgenyc.com