To the editor:

You know about the first one but I wanted to add a comment. If I should ever see another baby turtle with a saw tooth back edge to its shell, trudging along a hot and dusty path, I will let it trudge. When grown it will be a snapping turtle, killer of wood duck babies as they leap from their high nesting box only to be dragged under the water and eaten. Children, used to picking up turtles, may lose a finger or a chunk of flesh. Snapping turtles are truly evil and although they may be endangered I don’t care.

Last July, just by chance, I saw a painted turtle covering her eggs before slipping into the gold fish pool. A minute later I would have missed her. So I marked the spot with a broken pot to protect them and seventy-two days later we dug up the spot. There were several empty egg cases, like little bits of tough paper but the last one – what a miracle. There was a tiny dirty baby. A short bath in a little bit of water revived it and we saw the red markings on its legs and let it slide down a slope into the water and hide – under a rock.

As the summer days slipped by so fast I decided to mark each of our afternoon strolls with something to remember: so freckles on the lip of a twice blooming foxglove, the unexpected appearance of tiny lavender saffron crocus and another day, all of a sudden, the twisty yellow flowers of our native witch hazel on an almost leafless small tree.

Although a flock of charming chickadees reminded me that food is getting scarce, I am still debating whether to feed them or not. Last winter it would have been impossible – this promised warmer one would let me go out — but in the rain?

Sidney Tynan

Little Compton