Jerry, some are way more shy than others it's a personality thing My first RES that showed up at my pond is a total sweet heart except she is shy when she is sunning. if you catch her and pick her up she doesn't struggle or bite or scratch, she just enjoys the view of the pond she gets from up high. one of her daughters is as mean as a pit bull and looks like one, with a short face and she is as dangerous as a snapping turtle and is always trying to bite me if I pick her up. other ones are not shy when they are sunning and will accept my approach on foot. some that won't let me walk up to them will let me come up close if I'm in the water. They are born with there personalities and stay that way unless they learn to be otherwise.
I'm sure that you could breed a very tame strain of RES in 2 or 3 generations that would breed fairly true for boldness that would be more fun to be around. I have thought about doing that but my turtles need to be shy since herons and water snakes and frogs etc will eat them if they are to bold. But then again I will probably have an over population of them in a few years if things keep going as good for them as they have been. I have lots of baby turtles now and more hatching all the time. I think I have incubated my last batch of eggs and will let them reproduce on there own now. I hatched 5 nests of eggs this year and still have about 30 left to release next spring. I hope to have the big island pond built the next dry weekend from now and should have a nice new predator free pond to release them into. I didn't get around to building the island pond this spring as I planed. I was just to busy making seeds.
Thanks Water_Sprite here's a few more.
First is Mankala Ubol, you are right Tink it does have a nice color, definitely a keeper.
Director Moore
Supposed to be MR. Martin Randig. And I think it is.
And turtles sunning, A couple of males.