This little (about four-inch) Painted Turtle recently has taken a summer residency in our pond. We call it Tiny. It basks alongside the recurrent vacationer there, a Painted Turtle that is at least seven inches long, which we call Bruiser.
Painted Turtles are perhaps our best looking fresh water turtles, but we consider it a lucky day if we have more than a few seconds to study one before it plops into the water.
Here's Bruiser after it pushed Tiny off the best basking spot.
Female Painted Turtles should be impregnated by now. This month or next, they’ll leave the water; scoop out a nest hundreds of feet away; lay their eggs in the hollow, and scamper back to water’s edge. The eggs will hatch after about two months of self-incubation, but the small hatchlings will remain in the nest until spring, when they’ll march away seeking water. (Brooklin, Maine)