12th Anniversary Box Social. 8/22 and 8/23, 2015

For our twelfth anniversary, we wanted to do something special. We were trying to think... is it gold? Silver? Paper? I thought no... it is lifer. So I booked a hotel on Cape Cod and made an itinerary to Audubon-hop... hit as many Audubon sanctuaries as we could on Saturday. Then, wake up on the Cape on Sunday morn and get deeper into it at a reasonable hour. Ah, the best laid plans...

Like most couples, we prayed for rain all weekend. I mean, what good is the Cape in the sun? Since our targets were Spadefoot Toads and Box Turtles, we wanted it cool and rainy. The beach goers can kiss my ass. We got our wish for the most part. But before we left, we saw bloody paw prints all over the kitchen floor. Our cat Gibson had had a claw grow back into his paw, so we took him off to the vet pronto. He is fine; he got some drugs and a clipping. Now, 4 days later, he's back to his version of normal.

So, we got to the Cape later than planned, around noon. Many cars were going back due to the overcast, drizzly weather. We were thrilled! We got to the first place, supposedly a Spadefoot place, and explored the many trails. There were a few ponds present and this Bullfrog greeted us.

The habitat sure looked good for Spadefoots... sandy, cool and plenty of water, both standing and vernal. That Bull was, oddly enough, the only herp we saw there.

The next place had a ton of water and online research showed a slew of Water Snakes in the area. We saw none but the pond was full of happy Painted Turtles.



It was very warm and about 98% humidity while on these trails. We had a quick moment of "be careful what you wish for"... maybe right about now some sun would burn off the misty air. We explored this place fairly thoroughly but came up with no other herps.

We stopped for lunch. I had some pizza, one of my most craved foods since getting new teeth. Cut very small, it presented no problem and was divine.

The next place overlooked a salt marsh. I'd had hopes of sighting Terrapins out in the distance but really, there wasn't much view beyond the overgrown brush. We saw some predated nests and wondered if these were terrapins. Hopefully not. We soon found a freshwater pond complete with lounging Bullfrogs to set our minds at ease.


We had walked miles and miles of this type of path for hours and were just not seeing the herps.

The hour was getting late too, since most of my pre-planned directions were completely wrong. We grudgingly blew off the last spot in the plans and found our hotel.

On the good side, we went out for Mexican food and I learned a bit more about how to eat with my new teeth. I even enjoyed some tortilla chips. I can chew, but not bite. But I made all-gone with my dinner. We stepped outside after our meal and it was raining. "What do you want to do?" "What do you want to do?"

We decided that, since is was raining, we'd drive back to our first stop of the day (which we had reconned just in case we came back at night). It was about 17 miles away. For some reason, we had renewed vigor. It must have been the food. We got back there at about 8:30 PM. It was dark and the rain had stopped but the road was wet. We cruised a short street that we knew was pond-side. After a half dozen runs, I thought I saw something on the side, so I turned around quickly. Sure enough, a toad had made its way into the road.

I threw on the hazards and jumped out to encounter an American Toad!

Not a Spadefoot but Americans aren't super common on the Cape (mostly Fowler's in our experience).

The road wasn't as abandoned as I had originally thought. A few cars had to dodge my blinking Corolla. We decided that, after a half hour or so of cruising, that we'd just go into the sanctuary for a bit and look around with headlamps. That was fun, though we saw no animals. We knew it was a dawn to dusk place but we walked a couple of hundred yards in. I mean, it doesn't actually post anything about that until it appears on a kiosk way in. In the end, we saw no more animals and drove the 17 miles or so back to the hotel.

Was driving over 30 miles just to see one American Toad worth it? We both agreed... yes, it was. We slept like the dead that night.

We awoke later than planned on Sunday morning but got in gear quickly and hit the road. We held off on breakfast until we got to a place we had enjoyed a couple of years ago, much further up the Cape. We gorged ourselves merrily and then went to our planned destination. We got there a bit after 9 AM. It was cloudy and drizzly. Perfection.

The guest center had some hatchling Terrapins (saved from fox predation... the mammal got half, the rest were saved!) on display... this is what we were hoping to see here.

The cuteness...

We headed out. There were not as many birds as we'd hoped, except for right here... some Crows and Greater Yellowlegs.

(The crow on the left... hahaha!)

Keeping with the herps of the day before, we saw some Painteds and a Bullfrog.


The bullfrog did an amusing walk along the shallow water instead of swimming. I wish I had filmed him.

The sandy dunes and salt marshes yielded no terrapins and few birds. As always, crabs were everywhere. Even some teeny-tiny ones.


We spent quite a while out poking around and checking nest cages to see if any had sprung up hatchlings yet but we saw none. We took a short rest before starting our next endeavor... searching for Box Turtles.

During the break, we were talking to a gent who was telling us that the Orioles there like grape jelly. That is what attracted a few of them and I got this shot of two females.


So, we then embarked on a journey we had started quite a few times in the past... scouring the fields for Box Turtles. The weather was right. Rain was gently falling. We scoured inch by inch. At one point I snuck down to a nearby pond and shot some Painted Turtles that were desperately seeking the sun.


Not our target, but a chelonian delight none the less.

Our scouring took us on either side of a "turtle crossing" road. To be honest, we were just about getting ready to give up and go try another place entirely. From behind, we heard a man ask, "what are you looking for?" We told him what and where we'd been looking. He paused for a moment and asked us,"What's it worth to you?"

He was joking but I told him later he shouldn't have tipped his hand right away... I'd have slipped him a $20 no problem.

It turns out, this was the "Box Turtle Guy", Tim. He took us to an area not 100 feet from where we were scouring and showed us our White Whale, an Eastern Box Turtle.

This was an old female that he had found and was in the process of heading back to his office to get new batteries for his scale. Every weekend, he and his wife find, weigh and collect data on the Box Turtle population here. We were honored to be left in charge of this grand girl while he went for his gear.



Box Turtles had been a real monkey on our backs for years. We know the habitats, the preferred climate, their habits... but we could just never come across one. It was starting to get really embarrassing. Could we really call this, a gift turtle, our lifer? We didn't have to...

Tim very generously asked us if we'd like to help him look for the turtles and assist him in gathering the data. Ummm... YESSS! We all spread out and the scouring continued. We were doing the same thing as we had put a couple of hours into earlier, but doing it with renewed vigor. I was trailing, as I so often do, when I saw one hiding in a bush. I called out "I got one!"


Tim laughed, as he had just walked past that spot and didn't see the camouflaged animal. To prove his point about how hard they are to see, Andrea nearly stepped on another on her way to see my guy.


There we were, about 30 feet apart, with Box Turtles in hand. Tim came over to see my stunning male... "ah, number 79!" This guy was good! We stayed with our finds while he went back to retrieve his wife and more data sheets. My guy was very strong and he fought me as I held him. I put him down, hoping he wouldn't truck it away.

He didn't... he quietly buried himself in the leaf litter.


Meanwhile, Andrea's female got cantankerous.



She had an interesting shell deformity that looked like a second little tail on her carapace.

Tim wasn't familiar with this specimen. Her notches weren't easy to read either, if they were there at all.

These two were weighed and measured and  all of the data collected. The female was let free but the male had to go back to the office to complete his check-in. It had started to rain too much for the sensitive equipment. We took some photos before they were gone.



This male was a locomotive... he would not stop for a respectable pose...


We stayed in the field for a bit longer on our own, now that we were having the kind of success we had been hoping for for many years. We had begun to think that Eastern Box Turtles were some cryptozoological hoax. Florida Boxes? Yes. Desert Boxes? Of course. We have seen those. But Easterns? No way. How nice it is to learn that there has been no conspiracy against us.

We uncovered one more small male before heading back. He was under a pile of pine needles, all hunkered down.


He looks like Sargent Schultz.

I put his puff of pine needles right back on top of him and he never moved.

We got back to the office and gave Tim the GPS coordinated of Sgt. Schultz. Not a bad day, after all. He took us back into his work space. There were many tubs of freshly hatched terrapins there, still absorbing their egg sacks. They were quarter sized and would be released soon. My heart melted just a bit...

We thanked Tim profusely and told him that we'd be happy to come and "intern" for him any time. He knows that our interest in purely conservational and we love the animals. Hopefully, he'll ask for our help again some day.

Before we left, we checked the bird-feeders.

Everything was normal.

So, despite the sometimes frustrating day we had Saturday, it turned out to be a memorable anniversary. Spadefoots remain a need-it but getting to spend some quality time with Box Turtles, and actually actively working with them (helping to monitor the population, however briefly) is unbelievably rewarding. We can't thank Tim enough and we feel honored that he saw something in us that made him think we were worthy (and trustworthy) enough to assist him in his important work with this species of special concern in Massachusetts.