Eight turtles on the raft

When I looked out today about noon, eight turtles were enjoying the sun on our turtle basking raft. This was a new record, until I had taken the picture above and started this post. I happened to get up in the middle of writing this, and another turtle had climbed aboard, making the new occupancy record at nine.

I think these are all Yellow-bellied Sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta). The weather has cooled off a bit, and the water in the lakes cooler now. (I went swimming in the lake the other day, and I can attest to that!). Earlier in the summer when the water was very warm, not so many turtles were seen basking. The cooler water may be prompting more of them to bask to try to warm up.