It was a memorable day at the Environmental Center this past Sunday. There was already a buzz of excitement in the air with the beautiful fall weather, the launch of the Halloween decorating effort and a garter snake caught up in a visitor's sweater. But all that was only a prelude to the day's main attraction: a baby box turtle crawling across the front terrace! The tiny turtle, which was about an inch and a half long, was probably only a few months old. How rare is it to find such a turtle? Consider this quote from Davidson University's box turtle website:
"Little is known about the lives of young box turtles because they are so secretive and hard to find. In fact, it is very rare to find a box turtle much smaller than about 3.5 or 4 inches long. It is thought that these young turtles spend most of their time concealed in brush and leaf litter and feed primarily on insects."
So why were we so lucky? What was this turtle doing walking across the leafless, dry bluestone on our front terrace? It's anybody's guess. But I have a theory ...
We had another special visitor that day - Evie, a young lady from Brightwaters who readers of this blog might remember from this post from about a year ago, when we posted a photo of her with another young (but much older) turtle found at Scully. Since then, she has become a box turtle lover. In fact, when she came to visit us on Sunday she brought something to show us from her first day of school. It was a project for the students to introduce themselves to their teacher and classmates. Evie drew a picture of herself with a box turtle and wrote, simply, "I like to hold box turtles."
So it was all too fitting when a few minutes later Evie's mother spotted the little turtle walking across our terrace towards the building. I like to think (if you'll forgive me a little anthropomorphizing) that the turtle was a bit turned around and needed a helping hand. I think she (it was a female) was trying to get to Evie; she recognized a friend when she saw one.
Evie named the turtle "Digger." We put her in a tank for a few days, but plan to release her back to the property later this week. With a little luck, Digger will be around for years and years. Box turtles can live to be 50 or even 100 years old. Who knows, maybe she'll make it long enough to be around to help turn Evie's children (or even grandchildren!) into nature lovers, too!
- Enrico
Here are a few photos of Evie and Digger ...
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