With customary regrets over how weeks elude me (in all my endeavors) I
try to summarize some turtle observations and update this journal
site. On the 12th of May (the day after my last journal entry, I
believe) I had another signal turtle encounter when I found a familiar
eight year old Blanding’s turtle in the migration stream used by a
number of spotted turtles to get to the Swale. Any Blanding’s turtle
find is a cause for celebration, as they are few and far between in
the large wetland complex that is the epicenter of my spotted turtle
observations. Adults, except for females seeking nesting places, are
virtually absent, keeping to deeper waters beyond this area, but
ecology connected with it. I find young ones, up to age fifteen (but
mostly younger, smaller individuals), on rare occasions, as their
seasonal movement patterns closely follow those of the adult spotted
turtles. Given the chance nature of Blanding’s turtle finds, I have a
most unusual history with this eight year, who I first found as a one
or two year old (refrain: it is in my notes; need to re-visit past
notebooks some lifetime) and who I have found almost every year since.
This is indeed a fortuitous consequence of this turtle’s intimate
connection with the movements of the spotted turtles who overwinter in
the Great Swale and great Alder Carr and travel to the Swale vernal
pool habitat every year; remaining there until water levels fall too
low to provide escape cover, usually from the end of June into July,
later in very rainy summers. A key result of this history is that I
have measurements of a wild, free-living juvenile-subadult Blanding’s
turtle over this time frame. [I have an abundance of such records with
young age class wood turtles, who – in great contrast – I have
encountered with high frequency over the years.] A compilation of
times and places for such individuals is another key value of my field
notes. And of course I always wish there were more notes with more
details, etc. I would say that this young Blanding’s turtle has
something on the order of twelve years to go before reaching breeding
status. It is ever cause for reflection when I see a spotted, wood, or
Blanding’s turtle that has survived eight, ten, twelve, or more years
but still has years to go before becoming a breeding member of his or
her colony.

On the 29th of April, two days after the encounter with “Bright
Yellow” that I detailed in my last post, I observed a pair of spotted
turtles engaged in the courtship chase I describe in YEAR OF THE
TURTLE. (A print of the watercolor I produced to illustrate this
elaborate ceremony – and other turtle art prints – is available via www.carrollstudiogallery.com
; see also my artist’s page at www.Lake-Sunapee-Living.com; and coming
soon: www.davidcarrollturtleart.com) But of course the season moves
along too quickly to truly follow – there is joy and anguish in trying
to keep up with it all, even if there were nothing else in life to do
– and now it is nesting time.
On the 28th of May, after several heated days following the extended
rainy season of some three weeks of cool, even chill, dark and rainy
days (vital to maintaining the water level in the Swale, overcoming
for a time the effects of a culvert’s draining) I observed an adult
female out in the late afternoon, along the margins of the greatly
reduced nesting terrain associated with the east Brook. She could have
begun her searching for a nesting site. This can take days, or on some
occasions be the work of a single evening or morning. Soon after, I
found one definitely engaged in a search for a place to nest. She had
already dug a trial nest and abandoned it (common practice with this
species) and her carapace was well-covered with sand along the
margins. As I am making a concerted effort this year to take a census
of the wood turtles in the confluent two-stream central habitat for
the colony I have followed for some twenty four years I picked her up
in order to make an identification. I hated to do this, but a major
quest for me is to see who the nesters are at this time, with a view
to the great otter depredation of adults of four or five years ago.
And the turtles will in time go about their necessary business. In
fact this one, a long-familiar older female, did go on to complete her
nest that same evening despite my intrusion – I found it the next
morning. And that same morning, as I drove in on a dirt road at the
East brook area, I saw a wood turtle nesting in a sandy, scraped-out
niche used at times by farm equipment. This was precisely where I saw
my first wood turtle nesting, 24 years ago. Generally the passing of a
car does not disturb a nesting turtle enough for her to abandon her
project. As she was well-dug-in I did not want to go near her, and was
going to continue with my survey. But as I looked back, I saw her
crossing the narrow dirt road, heading back to cover along the brook.
So, I was able to capture her for identification. She was one of
twelve wood turtles we outfitted with radio transmitters for a study
Sheila Tuttle conducted a her Master’s Thesis for Antioch New England
in 1993. She was one of two subadults I chose to include, along with
the ten adults, in this radio-tracking study. As I recall, she was 11
years old then, which would put her in her 30th year.

On the first of June, following a very hot and humid spell of several
days in the upper 80s and even reaching 90 degrees, a day when tornado
warnings were posted for NH and adjacent areas, a thunderstorm passed
by to the immediate south of the wood turtle center, and a brief
period of rain fell. This lasted less than ten minutes – maybe five,
as I think of it – not at all the rain I had hoped for, and gardens
and swamps have been affected by another dry spell. At least we were
spared the severe storms that struck elsewhere; such as the tornado
that struck Monson, MA, site (along with Wales) of the Norcross
Wildlife Foundation’s sanctuary, Tupper Hill, where I served as artist-
Naturalist form 1994-1997 (as described in my SELF-PORTRAIT WITH
TURTLES). But this pattern of well-heated days following a cool, dark,
dry spell, followed by late afternoon rain and imminent or actual
thunderstorms is a classic signal for wood-turtle nesting. It occurs
with other species as well, but seems to me to be a hallmark of the
wood turtles. Between 4:30 and 6:30 I found four out to nest. As with
the previous two observed, these were older (30 years and up,
impossible to determine as they were already beyond accurately aging
when I first found them, twenty and more years ago) long-familiar
turtles. After this day of storms and near-storms, the weather went
from Guatemalan to Nova Scotian, from blazing sun, high heat and
humidity to heavily clouded days with strong winds (15-25 mph, gusts
to 35), cool to chill, and very low humidity; a pattern not typically
conducive to nesting. I intend to continue my quest to identify
nesting females. So far, the general (prevailing?) tendency appears to
be of the nesting in the colony to be carried out by the older
females; individuals I think of as the matriarchs. But I want to see
if any in the 15-20 year class nest as well, and hope I can be in all
the places at all the right times to get a handle on the age
distribution of those who nest.

My census continues, and will through the season, something of a
roundup to see who is still here, who is not, and new recruits into
the colony. Initial findings strongly bear out that recruitment here,
demonstrated by finding turtles in the 1-15 year age class, is
unusually high, based on what I have read in the literature about
other study areas, and my conversations with others who are engaged in
long-term studies of wood turtles (I am a bit out of touch with these
sources in recent years, but believe the scenario holds, with findings
of subadult turtles uncommon to rare). Already this year I have found
a number of previously undocumented 3, 6, and 9 years olds. It
continues to amaze me that I find turtles who have lived 2-10 years in
an area of no particular great extent that I have covered so closely
for so many years. I found a 13 year old who is missing both front
legs but still surviving, no doubt one of the many victims of the
winter of heavy predation by otters; but I am not seeing a number of
double-amputees I found the first-third years after their injuries. My
impression is that the wood turtles can survive the loss of feet or
half or entire limbs, but those more severely handicapped may not
survive long-term. Again, I hope more searches and more finds bring me
a clearer picture of these and other dynamics.

A week ago I had a most interesting interview with Mary Helen Miller,
who is writing for the Christian Science Monitor… a three-hour
dialog in our studio gallery and out by the swamps. She is writing
piece for the paper’s weekly magazine, for a column entitled “People
Who Make a Difference”. I am honored by this of course, but surely
wish I could make much more of a difference in that difficult area of
inspiring our culture and economics move beyond conservation to
preservation, as often addressed in my books and always in my talks.
More on this difference another time. I am not sure when Mary Helen’s
article will appear.