25 September β 31 October
the coastal calendar, unshifted
Scrub and abandoned terraces; heard before seen, walking through dry leaves.
Incubation temperature decides the sex: cool nests give males, warm ones females. It takes a tortoise ten years to breed, so a population can look healthy for a decade after the last successful nest. Picking one up and moving it is what most often ends a local population β they navigate home and die trying.
photos, sightings and recordings, off this site
where this species is on the list
| Phase | When | Length | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| wintering in cover | 1 November β 9 March | 129 days | Reptile dormancy β sluggish rather than truly asleep, and broken by warm spells. |
| going about the year | 10 March β 31 March | 22 days | Feeding, holding territory, doing nothing the calendar singles out. |
| courting | 1 April β 14 May | 44 days | Song, display, fighting, scent-marking β pairs forming or reaffirming. |
| on eggs | 15 May β 19 August | 97 days | Clutch laid and being incubated, or buried and left to the sun. Buried in a sunny slope and abandoned; the sun does the incubating, and it also sets the sex. |
| raising young | 20 August β 24 September | 36 days | Dependent young in the nest, den or burrow, being fed. |
| young dispersing | 25 September β 31 October | 37 days | Young leaving for good, looking for a territory of their own. |