Yesterday evening I was carrying in the groceries when I saw a new visitor headed up my drive towards my sidewalk. She was so brightly colored that, at first, I thought she was a male.

I set the groceries down and took a closer look. Her eyes were a pretty brown.

I gently picked her up and looked at her plastron. It was flat indicating she was definitely a female.

Setting her back exactly where I found her, I wondered what she had been eating to leave the dirt on her beak. Maybe a nice worm.

The day before, my husband pointed out this mushroom with a turtle-sized bite missing from it. I think we may have found the source. I hope it isn’t one toxic to turtles. Maybe it didn’t taste good, since it was only missing one bite.

She seemed very healthy and later crossed my drive to crawl into the woods alongside our house. I looked for her this morning but didn’t see her again.

There were many mushrooms in the direction she crawled. I will definitely be looking for more turtle size bites.