Big ol' Momma Snapper decided to lay her clutch of eggs next to the nice warm pavement on the road in front of the house.

That happens a lot all up and down the road as it's warm and easy digging.

When she was done she headed back down to the stream that is my back property line with a detour through the flower gardens. Mrs. PHPaul had to help her through the maze until she got into the back yard and had a clear shot to the stream. Fortunately, she's been around snappers enough to know better than to get too close.

We'll do what we can to protect the clutch. Most of them get dug up and eaten by foxes and such.

Very cool! We have a 120 acre duck club that is loaded with snappers. What we did was make up a bunch of wire boxes and every time we find a new nest we put one of these boxes over them and stake them down. It’s definately helped keep the coons from destroying the nests. The stuff we use is large enough that the baby snappers can get thru. We make them big enough that the coons can’t reach from the sides or top thru the box. We’ve only had one so far that they dug under it, usually they don’t have that kind of ambition and move on. I had a pet raccoon growing up but those suckers sure can cause havoc