Yesterday GrandCamper and I were checking on the little pawpaw trees that I planted several days ago. We brought along a great big watering can. Such a big watering can that she could hardly pick it up! That big! After the watering was completed I happened to look around, and at our feet was a little tiny Common Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina). An incredible sight. The shell just one and a half inches long.

Here’s GrandCamper holding (and really admiring) the little turtle. I would guess from the rings on the scutes (the scales) on the turtle’s shell that this turtle is maybe a year old. Though somewhat reliable, counting those rings is not totally accurate. Sometimes a turtle will produce two rings in one year, but not every year, usually just one is produced in one year.

Here’s a picture of the plastron, or bottom portion of the shell and my finger tips. This is a female Common Box Turtle since the plastron is flat. Male Common Box Turtle’s plastrons are concave. Later in the afternoon while she was out swinging GrandCamper spotted another Common Box Turtle. This one was a female digging a hole in the soil to lay her eggs! After the eggs are laid and they are covered with soil the female will leave the eggs to fend for themselves. I think though, we created too much commotion when we found her. This morning the hole was abandoned and not covered over.

Yesterday certainly was SUPER TURTLE DAY at GrandCamp! And we’re still (now very quietly) searching to find that female turtle and her new spot for her eggs.

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