The PIT and the Terrapin. 5-5-2018

I signed Andrea and myself up for a Diamondback Terrapin seminar on Cape Cod for Saturday, May 5th. My intention was to learn more about the species and do a little field work with them. I started to wonder if I had done the right thing when it looked as though that day was going to be the only decent day of the weekend (and it was) and I'd basically signed us up to be inside most of the day. Oh well.

But the presentations were all excellent and our friend Tim was there, so we were in a room full of people who love and protect turtles! My kind of people, for sure. There was a coffee break mid-morning so Andrea and I went out to a pond that is favored by Bullfrogs to try to get our first ones of the year. We not only broke the seal, we destroyed it! A calamity of clamitans!


A trio of Bullies!


Ahh, that felt nice. With Bullfrogs (all frogs, really) being harder to find than in the past, it was great to see a lot of green noggins.

With a few minutes left to the break, we headed to a larger pond to see a couple of stacks of Painted Turtles enjoying the Cape sun.

^ hoist...


We went back to see some more presentations before lunch break. Our plans for lunch was to take a walk through Tim's Box Turtle Field© and see if anyone was up. He had seen plenty of his turtles recently. Sadly, he was unable to join us on our lunch-hour hike due to an injured Terrapin he was showing to a vet. We walked the woods and saw nothing. I started keeping an eye out for Ribbon Snakes because the sun was so warm. Andrea did, in fact, see one slither away. Figuring it was too dry for Box Turtles, we headed back. It was on the way back that I saw a yellow and black shell sticking out of the leaves. I gently uncovered the attached face.

Our first official Box Turtle of the year. The yellow dot shows that Tim has already measured and weighed this turtle this year.

Continuing back to the meeting, Andrea noticed a tunnel in the leaves. Sure enough, this shy Box Turtle was hunkered down.

Unmarked, we told Tim where to find it for later.

The rest of the meeting was very interesting and by mid-afternoon, we all prepared to head over to a nearby cove for Terrapin field work. Before leaving, we took Tim over to show him where the unmarked Boxie was. He recognized her right away as "Sleeping Beauty", a turtle who is always closed up tight when he encounters her. We got a brief glimpse of her face before she shut the door. Tim stayed behind to collect the data on her while we headed to the Terrapin spot.

We got to the site where we'd be looking for Terrapins and I made myself sexy.


We were in luck... Terrapin noggins were poking up all over the place! It would be easy pickin's!


(The official noggin-counter later said she'd counted 288 turtles.)

We were to go in teams at predesignated coordinates and net the Terrapins in our section. I teamed up with a smart and friendly gent with an impressive beard named Alan. We searched our section and saw not one Terrapin. So, we were lead to another section...


After coming up Terrapin-less on our second try, we were a little relieved to hear that it wasn't just us... this organized sweep wasn't bringing in many turtles. When we got back to our PIT station, there had only been a couple brought in. It definitely wasn't as easy as it looked like it was going to be!


Much to our delight, we were told to go back in, ignore the coordinates and get some turtles! Alan and I went back out to deeper waters to try our luck.


Alan struck pretty quickly and got three Terrapins in a short amount of time. I was having a much tougher go of it. I saw plenty of mating Horseshoe Crabs (I accidentally netted a solo one, too) but didn't see any turtles... until I stumbled across a good sized female. We took our buckets o' Terrapins to the "station".

When we got there, the free-for-all had produced many more specimens than the organized sweep had. Andrea was working with our friend Maureen (who had unfortunately injured her arm earlier) to measure, weigh and tag the animals.


^ Check out that molting shell!

^ Oh, the humiliation!

This is Alan's bucket of cuteness:


This is the one I found.

Getting her PIT (Passive Integrated Transponder) tag...



Alan and I went back out but we both came back empty handed. I tried the method of standing out in the deep water where multiple Terrapin heads would come up 10 or 15 feet from me. I figured that eventually, they would come closer. They didn't. One large one and I had a stand off so long that she yawned. It was time for me to admit defeat... I was bested by a turtle once again.

While we were out, Andrea had fallen in love with one of Alan's finds... a remarkably beautiful specimen who also had some spunk.


It wasn't just the shell that was so different and beautiful... look at those head markings.


Eventually, all of the Terrapins had been measured and tagged and it was time to take them back.

Alan and I had the honor of returning them.

It is Andrea's friend who was going in the wrong direction here... perhaps she wanted to stay a bit longer.


This young male was saved to be used as a classroom animal for the next morning. He was returned to his water Sunday afternoon.


Andrea walked down the beach to visit the other PIT station. Here are some of the turtles collected there.


^Another molting one.


So, do I regret spending the only sunny day of the weekend cooped up in a classroom? Hell, no! As you see, we got out and about, learned a lot and spent time with friends, both old and new and got to do something that will hopefully help these animals in the long run. A very rewarding day.

Of course, we were still two hours away from home. We figured we'd be hitting the state forest in Plymouth at about dusk so we planned on stopping over there. Of course, it was dry so the roads wouldn't be filled with anurans like we'd hoped, but we hit a few places to peek around in the dwindling light.

Under a discarded piece of carpet in the sand, we saw our First-of-Year Fowler's Toad, though he thinks he successfully hid from us.


I saw a small Ringneck Snake in a pile of rocks but couldn't get a photo before he slid in deeper. I did flip a board and saw two Redbacks and a Leadback.


Hey- where did that Leadback get to? He'd crawled under my shoe!


So, that was a long but enjoyable day. The last hour of driving got pretty tedious. I swear I was hallucinating by the time we got home. I kept seeing Terrapin noggins! Not really but I will admit that I slept like the dead that night.

And I'd do it all again today.