We seldom see turtles up here on the mountain, but last week I had two sightings, and I am pretty sure it was the same turtle. That’s the first time I have been able to identify the same turtle on two separate occasions.
Here he (she? I didn’t check) is on Fouche Gap Road.
Lucy’s snout is in the picture for size reference (I guess I need another reference so you can tell how big she is; not big.) This turtle was facing the edge of the road, so I wasn’t too worried about leaving it where I found it.
Two days later we found a turtle at the same place, but heading into the road.
I don’t know for sure that it was the same turtle. Here’s a somewhat closer shot.
There is some glare on the shell, but it seems to me that the patterns on shell are the same on both occasions, so I assume it is the same turtle. I took this picture with my iPhone, so it won’t bear any more enlargement.
This section of the road is just past and on the inside of a fairly sharp curve, so it would be a dangerous place for a turtle to spend much time. I moved it just off the pavement and faced it away from the road. Of course if the turtle knew where it wanted to go, that might not have done much good.
Now that I know where to look, I’ll check this area Monday when I take that path for the dogs’ walk.
Well that’s exciting. I find it thrilling when I run across a box turtle I’ve seen before. There are not many animals in our neck of the woods that you can do this with reliably.
I’ve been using google alerts to keep an eye on box turtle reports that make it to the internet. Last week I received a notification that Thomas Wilson in Biology at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga was doing a census last Friday at the Enterprise South nature park. They’re using radio transmitters for some finds, but they’re also using dogs trained to find wild life, in this case box turtles. That’s pretty cool.
Looks like your road bisects that turtle’s “territory.” Right now it’s all about sex and laying eggs, so the turtles are often going outside their usual haunts. I’ve thought about checking with our road jurisdiction people to see if they could put up box turtle crossing signs. But on our county owned neighborhood access road, cars move fairly slowly and people are mostly careful. On Wolfskin Road, probably also a county road, I’ve only seen one box turtle trying to cross. Not very compelling evidence for a turtle crossing spot, I’m afraid.
Oh – the usual recommendation for road rescues is to move the turtle well off the side it’s moving toward, preserving direction. They’re pretty stubborn, and will just turn back around to continue in the direction they wanted to go.
I was hoping Wayne would weigh in here. His turtle insights are invaluable. Very cool sightings you have there. Hope all the season goes well and successfully for all your turtles.
Wayne — It is really kind of neat to be able to ID a specific animal like that. The road crossing recommendation makes sense. In this case the turtle was close to the edge of the road, facing around 50 or 60 degrees away from the opposite side. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but I was afraid to leave him where he was. I went down the same way today (Monday) and there was no sign of him.
Robin Andrea — There’s no question that I’m a total amateur compared to Wayne when it comes to turtles (among many other things). I was relieved today not to see a squashed turtle at that curve.
Wayne’s advice on moving a turtle agrees with that of the Wildlife Center of Virginia. A turtle’s gonna go where a turtle’s gonna go.
Minnie — Yes, I can see that would be good advice. As I said in my reply to Wayne, though, I wasn’t really certain what the turtle was doing, and, of course, once the dogs started nosing around, he wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe the next time I can watch him from a distance and figure out which way he’s headed before I get to him. I should have mentioned that I saw the turtle on my way down, and it was gone when we came back up a half an hour or so later.