From Nesting to Emergence at a Half-Century Communal Wood Turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) Nesting Site: Species Phenology Across a Full Protected Season, Hatchling Consumption by Yellow Jackets (Vespula sp.), and Nest Protection by Overlaid Netting

Damian Anthony Vraniak, Christina Cherie Vraniak, Daybreak Borne Vraniak, Arendaki Sage Vraniak

Long-term records that connect a turtle nesting season to the hatchling emergence it produces, at daily resolution and across multiple species, are rare. At a communal nesting site in Washburn County, Wisconsin, protected and monitored by our family for over five decades, we surveyed both ends of the 2026 season daily: the nesting period (25 May–13 June; 171 turtle sightings of five species, 143 of them Glyptemys insculpta) and the hatchling emergence (3 August – 2 September; 189 hatchlings of three species — 51 Wood Turtle, 56 Snapping Turtle, Chelydra serpentina, and 82 Spiny Softshell, Apalone spinifera). Emergence recapitulated the nesting sequence species by species: median nesting-sighting date to median emergence date spanned 70 d for Wood Turtle, 78 d for Snapping Turtle, and 81 d for Spiny Softshell. The Wood Turtle nesting and emergence windows were each exactly 18 d. Both seasons were strongly pulsed, with the peak day carrying 25% (nesting) and 20% (emergence) of the season. Day-after-rain emergence was elevated (11.5 vs. 4.8 hatchlings/d; excluding a trace-rain day, 13.8 vs. 4.6/d, permutation p = 0.03): the season’s two largest rains — 0.20 in on 20 August and a 1.74-in storm spanning 25–26 August — were each followed the next morning by its two largest pulses (37 and 21 hatchlings), and a 0.07-in overnight rain on 30–31 August — after four hatchling-less days — was followed on the misty morning of 31 August by four more Spiny Softshells, a third, smaller instance of the same displacement; the season then closed with four Softshells on each of two dry mornings, 1 and 2 September, which the pattern does not predict. Like the nesting-season same-day rain association, the pattern is event-driven in a single season and is offered for testing against future seasons. Hatchlings observed per nesting-season sighting varied from 0.36 (Wood) to 13.7 (Spiny Softshell), showing that nesting surveys and emergence counts census different species best. No Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) emerged, consistent with hatchling overwintering in the nest. We also report yellow jackets (Vespula maculifrons) feeding on a Spiny Softshell hatchling — to our knowledge unreported for hatchling turtles. Eight hatchlings (4.2%) were found dead at the surface, the last of them desiccated; and the return of the most active members of the 2025 predator assemblage was observed — Raccoon (Procyon lotor), deer mice (Peromyscus), and Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus); on 28 August, within the hatchling-less days, a deer mouse (Peromyscus sp.) was recorded by trail camera before sunrise carrying a turtle hatchling — to our knowledge the first record of Peromyscus taking a hatchling turtle, and a reminder that daily counts are lower bounds. Innovatively using fine netting newly overlaid on the outside-cage array partially blocked the raccoon: all three depredated nests lay beyond the netting margin, and every netted nest survived.