Eastern Box Turtle: Just Passing Through...

When I got back from the lake yesterday morning I met W at the entrance to the driveway. He warned me to look out for an Eastern Box Turtle that had been trundling its way across the parking strip where I park my car. I couldn’t see a turtle anywhere. We looked all around, figuring that it had headed off towards the woods. No sign of it. W poked around and finally found that it had crawled under a plastic container covering a hydraulic car jack.

I moved it over on a bed of leaves to get a photograph. Most turtles I’ve found tend to retreat into their shells and stay there until I’ve left. Almost immediately it poked its head out to explore its surroundings. It ignored our cat when she came to investigate this strange creature.

Soon it decided it was time to leave…

And we’re off….

Back to safety under the plastic container covering the car jack. It hunkered down there for a while and, when we’d all left, it continued on its way to go wherever it was going when it was so rudely interrupted.