Box Turtle Nest CSI: Search and Recovery

 I never feel luckier to live here on this 80-acre sanctuary I call Indigo Hill than in mid-June, when everything--everything--is making babies. As I sit at my desk, there are red-bellied woodpeckers and downy woodpeckers feeding young just outside the window. I can hear two of the five indigo buntings on the land singing their heads off. Fledgling eastern bluebirds are churring, being fed. A prairie warbler sings in the birch out the south studio window.  This morning, I watched our male pine warbler feed a couple of fledglings in the row of tall Virginia pines that edge the meadow. The breeze is sweeping through the house, the tall grass is waving around blooming butterfly weed, and it is grand, simply grand. 

I'm learning how to find box turtle nests. I've been looking for years, but the skunks and raccoons almost always get to them before I do. Oh, how I hate to find dug-out nests, but I find them every year. Last year was a warmup--I got out early, found and protected two before the mammals got them. One nest hatched successfully in the first week of November--late late late!  I wrote about it in "Another Box Turtle Morning" a few posts back. By May 29, I had decided to dig up the second nest, figuring the eggs were bad, or the babies had gotten entombed. That was an interesting exercise. I found the remains of four eggs, and the closer I looked, the more I discovered. There were embryos, all right, but they did not seem to be fully developed, because there was a lot of yolk, too, which seemed to have gotten saponified in the process of decomposition. It's the yellowish white stuff here. 

In this shot, you can see a scute, or scale, from the baby's shell at the bottom of the mess. So they were pretty well-developed when they died.

There were embryos in all four, with shell scutes and and wee tiny vertebrae. It made me sad. I don't know why they didn't hatch. The nest was in a pretty shady area and I'm guessing they might not have gotten sufficient sun to warm them enough to develop all the way. The small cement block I put on the cage with which it was protected may have blocked even more sun. Sometimes in trying to help, we harm. I don't know. I just knew they didn't make it, and that I needed to do better by the next nests I found.

We don't want this--babies dead in shell. What we want is this. Here's the only hatchling I found of four from the other nest, in the sun-drenched middle path of the meadow. The others dug out and got away before I found them, in early November 2022. This lil fella hatched but decided to stay in the nest chamber over the winter (not uncommon). I felt him in there, then saw him with my phone flashlight. I covered the hole with loose soil and left him all winter long, and he dug out on April 26!

I carried him down into the woods and let him go near a stream. Long may he crawl. 

Finding a juvenile box turtle on my land is the sweetest reward for my work. I found this little beauty, about the size of a lime, on June 4, 2023, on the first rainy morning in quite awhile.

I didn't pick him up or disturb him unduly, just made a couple shots and walked on. 

Found this old gent in the driveway May 13--doubtless looking for a hen to impregnate.

This spring, I was determined to find the female box turtles while they were laying, which is from the first to third week of June. They need heavy rain to soften the soil enough so it can be dug, and we didn't get that until June 3. On June 4, Phoebe, Liam and I went out looking, and we found three hen turtles making test digs that very evening! 

They are very wary while digging, and we didn't approach them--just took a quick snapshot and walked on as if we hadn't registered them.

None of these test holes resulted in eggs--the females hit roots or rocks. There's a lot of that, and you can always figure out what she hit that made her move on. But this is still informative, because it tells you the vicinity she's chosen, and will likely try to dig again.

June 4, 2023--Phoebe is finally on summer vacation from her high school counseling work, and she joins Liam and me at home for some nature reverie. We find three turtles digging this evening. If there's anything more heart-stirring than walking with my own babies, looking for turtles laying eggs, I haven't found it. 

Baby Box Turtle!

Ohio now has a Wildlife Legacy Stamp which you can buy to raise money for nongame wildlife conservation in our state. Each year, they hold a contest for photographers who submit shots of the chosen taxon, be it reptile, bird, insect or animal. When I heard the the 2013 contest would feature a native Ohio turtle, I was hooked.

I was also emboldened because my dear friend Nina Harfmann (Nature Remains blog) had won it with a spotted salamnder photo only last year! I was about to be humbled...

I drafted JackWagon, a hatchling box turtle who was found crawling on a grassy strip in downtown Marietta near the YMCA four years ago, to be my model. I've been feeding Jackwagon for maximum growth and eventual release on our sanctuary, that being a much better home for him than a parking lot surrounded by busy roads and shopping centers. The idea is to get him (or her; it's hard to tell at this age) big and hard-shelled enough so that predatory chipmunks can't open him up like an unfortunate walnut. 

It works! this headstarting; see the heartwarming story of Shelly, Class of 2011.

JackWagon proved to be an excellent model. In constant motion, striking pose after dynamic pose.

He was a challenge, one I gladly sank to, for these photos were taken from belly-level, which happens to be the best way to photograph anything small.

I looked at the background of moss and bedstraw and dappled sunlight, and decided it was probably too busy for a stamp design. So I brought him to a bit of my garden with nice moss.

I absolutely loved my afternoon in the woods with JackWagon and two cameras. 

He never stopped trying to move out of the frame. My beloved Canon 7D wasn't up to the lighting and motion challenge. Neither was the Canon G-12, with its shutter delay. Much cussing.

I pulled out my iPhone, which has the distinct advantage that I could tell it what to focus on. No. Not the leaf in front. The turtle's eye. Focus on that. I'd touch the screen, the camera would focus on the desired bit, and boom! it was done. And JackWagon would be out of the frame again.

All these photos were taken with an iPhone. I realized that, in revealing this small fact on the entry form, I may have been helping myself lose the contest. I didn't care. The phone simply did a better job than either of my two real cameras. I came out with two favorite images--this dynamic one which has such a nice eye and leg position

 and this squee-worthy Yertle the Turtle face.  Oh my gosh. I love this photo. Not least because you can see Sluggo, my other potential model, sulking in the background. He took one look at me and my cameras and did a Marlena Dietrich on me. Pulled in his head and said no herpin' way.

I knew that the fact that JackWagon's beak is slightly out of focus would hurt his chances in a photo contest. But dang. He's got personality.

I sent the images to my Board of Exalted Art and Turtle Appreciators (you know who you are and thank you!!) They made their votes for the top three.

Shila printed off the photos for me, I mounted them on board and sent them off with crossed fingers and high hopes. I've been doing a lot of that sending-things-off-with-high-hopes lately. You can't win if you don't play.

The contest results were announced September 9. Jackwagon did not win. They chose  this beautiful midland painted turtle by Sharon Cummings. A worthy opponent. Very sharp photo. And a very nice plain background. Durn it. How do you photograph a box turtle in its natural habitat and get a background like that? Haven't figured that out yet.

I knew, even on submitting, that there is a difference between a real photographer like Ms. Cummings and someone who happens to carry a camera of sorts everywhere she goes; between someone who's invested in serious lenses and has taught themselves how to get perfectly-lit, needle-sharp photos and someone who is down on her belly cussing, laughing and pointing an iPhone at a baby box turtle. I guess I was hoping to win it on personality. :) Zick. It's a photography contest, not a Cutest Baby contest.

Congratulations to Sharon Cummings! You nailed it! We'll see this beautiful image on the next stamp. You can buy your Wild Ohio Legacy Stamp here. The turtle stamp goes on sale March 2014. It's a great cause, money going directly to conservation. Please buy one and show your support for the un-antlered, inedible ones we need so much.

 No, I didn't win the photo contest. But I got to spend an afternoon on my belly with a hyperactive baby box turtle I've raised from when he was the size of a quarter, and that is something.