Everyone who's kept reptiles for any significant amount of time will be able to tell you a funny story or two about something odd, strange or completely insane that happened to them. I'm no different.
My tortoise paddock, with its eclectic residents and thoroughly questionable neighbours, has become something of a gold mine for those stories. On occasion, it's also provided a few heart-wrenching moments too. But more often than not, it simply leaves me standing there wondering what on earth I've just witnessed.
Let me tell you about the Mediterranean contingent.
Every summer they emerge into the paddock with one job to do. Breed. That's it. Nothing complicated. Just get on with being tortoises.
The group is made up of Horsfield tortoises (Testudo horsfieldii), Eastern Hermann's tortoises (Testudo hermanni boettgeri) and one lone female Western Hermann's tortoise (Testudo hermanni hermanni). Individually they're delightful little animals. Collectively... they're a handful.
These animals are all kept as part of my breeding projects and, since the 2025 ban on importing Horsfield's and Hermann's tortoises—a decision I completely agree with—responsible captive breeding has become more important than ever. Fortunately, I've worked with and bred these species for a number of years.
They're experienced.
They're healthy.
They're valuable.
They're also completely incapable of going through a single summer without creating absolute chaos.
And by chaos, I mean exactly that. Digging under fences, chasing customers, biting each other, Agnes, Scratch, Shelby, Penny, me... any random object that happens to end up in the paddock. If it's growing, it's edible. If it isn't growing, they'll probably have a go anyway. These little tanks do not discriminate.
Now, this particular day started like any other.
Open the door.
Let them out.
Stand back and let the carnage begin.
The very first thing they do after tumbling out of their secure night house is eat. In fact, the first five square feet directly outside the entrance is nothing but bare earth because they start grazing the moment their feet touch grass. Day after day they've mown it down to soil before slowly working their way across the paddock in what can only be described as a completely disorganised scrum, stopping only when somebody spots a particularly interesting patch of greenery... or something shiny that absolutely demands investigating.
On this particular day, one of my Horsfield ladies, Baby, decided she was going to dig her way out because... well... why not?
She was already halfway through the fence when another of my little hellraisers, Sweetie, came charging over and quite literally pushed her the rest of the way through like a cork leaving a bottle.
Out they both popped.
Off they went.
Straight into a patch of nettles denser than a resident backstabbing half-wit.
It's not that nettles are a problem. They're just a pain in the bum. The fact they were growing outside the paddock itself wasn't helping matters either.
So off I went to wrestle two tortoises out of a patch of stinging nettles, completely missing the fact I'd just watched two of the little reprobates dig straight under the perimeter fence.
Two painful but otherwise uneventful minutes later, I had Baby and Sweetie safely in hand, ready to return them to the paddock.
Unfortunately for me, there were now another three tortoises doing their very best Steve McQueen impression.
If they could whistle...
They would have been.
I put the original miscreants back into the paddock—well away from the tunnel they'd just excavated under the fence—rounded up the other three escapees, returned them to where they belonged and set about repairing the damage.
Two seconds later, the Mediterranean contingent had completely forgotten their attempted prison break and were back to doing what tortoises do best; bickering amongst themselves, eating or sleeping.
Then Agnes arrived.
Scratch wasn't far behind.
Agnes is a walking disaster.
Scratch is her randy accomplice.
The fence never got dug under again.
It simply got knocked over.
Not because either of them wanted to escape...
...but because I happened to be working on it, and Agnes had decided she wanted to see what I was doing.
Once I'd repaired everything, persuaded the mobile bulldozer that is Agnes to move elsewhere and allowed Scratch to loyally follow behind, I finally sat down to admire my handiwork.
Peace at last.
Or so I thought.
That's when I noticed Sunni, my lone Western Hermann's tortoise, charging around after every other tortoise she could find. Nipping, jostling and generally making an absolute nuisance of herself. I describe this as "male" behaviour and, in Sunni's case, it's usually the first sign that she's getting ready to lay eggs.
So, I settled in to watch.
The plan was simple.
Wait for Sunni to dig her nest, collect the eggs and tuck them safely into the incubator.
Of course, life happened.
A customer arrived, one conversation became another and, before I knew it, a couple of hours had disappeared.
When I finally made it back to the paddock, I started searching for Sunni's eggs.
I found them.
Well...
One of them disappeared over the fence in a blur of black and white.
The other was smashed open and already half eaten.
The magpies had entered the chat.
Now, I have a very rocky relationship with magpies. They're bold, visually stunning, exceptionally intelligent and, if you ask me, complete little hooligans. They're opportunists of the highest order. Leave something unattended for thirty seconds and they'll investigate it. Leave it for a minute and they'll probably steal it. They don't care that you've spent hours building something or that you've got plans for those tortoise eggs. As far as a magpie is concerned, if it can carry it away or eat it, it's fair game.
On this occasion, they'd decided my incubator was going to be one egg lighter.
That settled it.
I needed security guards.
Luckily, I already had a petty thief living as part of my wonderfully dysfunctional paddock. I simply had to update his job description.
Jack.
Jack is a jackdaw.
If you've never met one, imagine a smaller magpie wearing a grey waistcoat, working well in a team and considerably less interested in robbery, assault and tortoise eggs.
All I had to do was convince Jack—and, more importantly, his mates—that my paddock was a good place to spend their time.
Fortunately, that wasn't as ridiculous a plan as it sounds.
Jackdaws and magpies occupy remarkably similar ecological niches. They feed on many of the same foods, use the same environments and possess remarkably similar levels of intelligence. I've watched these boys go at it more than once. They're loud, they're relentless and they don't pull any punches.
Or feathers.
The thing about magpies, though, is that they rely on confidence.
And bravado.
The thing about jackdaws...
...is they rely on numbers.
If Jack and his mates decided the paddock belonged to them, even the magpies would think twice about dropping in uninvited.
Thanks to Jack's already established tolerance of me—and his uncanny ability to steal just about anything from right underneath my nose—getting his attention wasn't particularly difficult.
Keeping it, and persuading him to bring a few friends along, proved just as straightforward.
Food.
Lots of it.
Then all it took was patience. I'd sit quietly nearby, scattering food while simultaneously discouraging the magpies from helping themselves. Before long, the jackdaws had become completely accustomed to my presence.
I'm no ornithologist, but I suspect providing the food also convinced the jackdaws that the paddock—and everything in it—belonged to them.
As far as Jack and his mates were concerned, I'd simply opened a new restaurant.
The fact that it also came with free entertainment in the form of chasing off magpies was, I suspect, just an added bonus.
So, the eggs are safe, the fences are back up and the holes are filled.
All is well.
I've brokered peace with a gang of petty thieves who, in return for regular payment, have evicted the biggest danger to my tortoises and their eggs.
I'll take that as a win.
And like all my wins...
I'll treasure it.
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