Slow - Turtle Crossing

On our walk this morning, I was crossing the street in order to get a better look at the leaves of a Redbud tree.  It was a dead-end residential street, not much traffic.  For some reason I was looking down at the road, not the tree, and that turned out to be a good thing.

Smack in the middle of the road was this newly hatched snapping turtle, maybe two inches long from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.  Granted, that road didn't have lots of traffic, but I didn't like the odds for this little guy.  Plus, we had seen an adult around the corner that had been run over, just two weeks ago.

We helped him off the road - here he is on the concrete strip that abuts that asphalt.  You can see by the pine needle on his shell that he's very small.  Shortly after this, he was safely in the grass, pointed toward the pond.

Assuming he's safe from vehicles, he still has danger ahead of him.  Hatchlings are prey for herons, crows, and hawks, all of which are plentiful at this pond.  

Snapping turtles mature around the age of 15-20 years, and can live up to 100 years.  I wonder what the pond will look like then, if it will even exist.