There Will be Blood...from turtles

Our freshwater leech.

Another look. Apparently the French like them sauteed with a little butter and some garlic, but of course the French will eat anything.

The new Tilly digging her nest (we think).

Disgusted she makes a break for the pond.

Back in her element.

We discovered a second snapping turtle, smaller than the first, digging away in our pumpkin patch today. This was a good 50 feet from the edge of the pond. More surprising for us was what we discovered on the turtle's shell. A big, black leech. Very odd. The leech was a freshwater leech and we're guessing our pond is well supplied with the little suckers. Snapping turtles (according to a couple of websites) are one of the preferred hosts for freshwater leeches although they will gladly load up on fish, frog or mammal blood. Hmm, I knew there was a good reason we didn't go wading in the pond.
As for the turtle, we've decided she was trying to dig a nest before we rudely interrupted. The poor thing finally gave up (minus the leech which I obligingly removed) and trundled back to the pond. We've had to do some rethinking on our turtle names with the discovery of this new, smaller snapper who appears to be a female. As a result she has assumed the mantle of "Tilly the turtle" and our original, bigger turtle will henceforth and forevermore be known as "Tommy the turtle".