Hatching takes approximately 80 to 90 days, but the hatch date can vary depending on temperature and other environmental conditions. Generally, hatchlings emerge from their leathery egg in August through October by using a small egg tooth to break open the shell. When the young hatch, they dig out of the nest and instinctively head to water. Young at hatching are about an inch long with soft shells and they must make it to water without being preyed upon by raccoons, skunks, foxes, dogs, birds, and snakes. When they reach water, the young turtles may be taken by fish and other snapping turtles. Once the turtles have grown some and their shells harden, they are virtually predator-free.

Excerpt from “Common Snapping Turtle”

It’s still dark as we drive the packed car to the ferry. We are early, and get an even earlier crossing. I stay in the hold with the car, open my computer. Go to the Montreal Thanksgiving poem I’ve been working on for months. When I look up, we are docking; I’ve not noticed the trip at all. Just before the rain starts, we are home. And the girls and I go into the garden where we find the baby snappers have hatched from the compost pile! Tiny blackish beings are trotting with tiny legs through the garden and wet grass. It’s raining now. We pick up handfuls of them and cross the wet field where the deer have made their beds in comfort while Charlie has been absent. We let them down on the soft muddy bank and watch them slip and slide down the gentle slope into their new home, the Charles River, where their turtle mothers live. We are home to the river, one and all now. Back to the garden to see all the changes: the eggplant are abundant and strange–why do they seem more like purple pumpkins? They are all strangely plump. There are almost a dozen watermelon ripening, and cantaloupe too, and ripe cherry tomatoes and bright yellow squash blossoms. “Shall we put squash blossom on the pizzas,” my youngest asks? We are getting drenched, but we’re so happy, happy as sunflowers, the sunflowers blooming tall and bright under the clouds. We walk to the trestle bridge and back, talking over our time away and the excitement of the turtles hatching on the day of our return. And of the baby coming and the homemade pizzas for dinner. I unpack and unpack and soon enough it’s all done. In the late afternoon I nap. And wake to enjoy the most delicious flat bread pizza I’ve ever eaten. The youngest has cooked them and let me sleep: yes, here are the squash blossoms and basil and thyme that her big sister has grown. It is ever so good, so good to have gone, so good to be home to our harvest.