This is turtle crossing time.
Late yesterday afternoon, southbound on rt. 7 between Stockbridge and Great Barrington. Thinking about that boxing turtle a few years earlier, trying to remember the exact spot…then I saw it: enormous turtle on the right shoulder. Enormous. The snapping turtle I’ve been posting about who laid her eggs two feet in from the ROAD, well this guy looked to be about three times that size.
By the time my eyes and head were in sync I was passing by, and had an Audi coming up from behind. I drove til I could turn around and then drove back north.
Even if I had no landmarks, the other cars pulling over would have guided me. Must have been seven or eight cars that ended up pulling over on both sides of this very busy, end-of-June-weekend-in-the-Berkshires highway. And just as I pulled over, having re-spotted turtle, I saw it raise its head and deliberatively, slowly, its giant– what are they called? Paws? Legs? Appendages?– begin a forward trek with determination across this busy ROAD!!
A guy jumped out of an SUV that had pulled over just ahead of turtle. On the way back from kayaking with boats and paddles on the roof, the guy grabbed one of the latter and slid it underneath turtle while grabbing the tail. He pretty smoothly slid it over, but back to the woods from which it had emerged….oh no!!!!!
Meanwhile the traffic is flowing by in both directions, and the shoulders north and south bound are barely wide enough to pull over. The guy who had pulled up behind kayak guy was fascinated and kept asking stuff, drowning out the sound of my voice calling, Wait! Wait! Needs to go in the same direction was crawling!!!
By the time he heard me, kayak guy looked down the embankment at the I assume disappearing turtle and then back at me. “Good point,’ he said as he turned towards the woods, dark and deep, one more time. “Looks like he’s gone that way before…” A smile, a shrug, and he headed back to the car with his paddle.
I did not think I could in any way lift this giant turtle on my own, otherwise I would have lunged across the road and all the traffic in it. I hoped for the best, and that maybe turtle would wait til a quiet hour like 3 a.m., and then make a deliberative go for it…