Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary

Sun Shines on Turtle Field School (some of the time)

Turtles, like the summer, seem off by a couple week

In spite of the weather, a good time was had by all. Or so it seemed!  We got soaked from the rain and tides. Usually at this time of year box turtles are hard to find and the terrapins are busy nesting. We did find box turtles, but they were still on the wintering grounds, barely rallying themselves to migrate to summer feeding areas. A few females have started to nest. All the turtles are very late; everything seemed to be off by two weeks. A couple of the turtles we found were first marked in 1986. They looked like they were doing fine. We also found a young, 9 year box turtle who was found late last year. Here’s a video, courtesy of Don Lewis, of one we found on the first--very rainy--day of the field school.
Unlike most years, we find many more nesting terrapins than box turtles. It wasn’t until day two that the sun came out and so did the terrapins. Lieutenant’s Island and Indian Neck were the hot spots. The field school participants were able to see, on several occasions, females excavating nests and laying eggs. That doesn’t happen on too many programs, but it happened twice on Lt. Island and three times on Indian Neck. Wow, what a day!

There are more field schools to come on subjects from birds and marine life to digital photography. Learn about them here!