September is that time of the year when the world starts to think about shutting down for the winter. I have already seen hints of color on certain maple trees and the days have become noticeably shorter. I feel a thrill every time I log onto BirdCast (Cornell University’s radar-based bird tracking venture) and see evidence of hundreds of millions of birds moving from north to south during the night. But this thrill is always tempered with a smidgen of melancholy. The party is over, the guests are leaving, and soon we will be the ones left behind.
Before this finishes happening there will be an explosion of splendor across the landscape. The leaves will turn color en masse and in no time at all we will feel a snap in the air and we may even catch a whimsical whiff of wood smoke floating across the landscape. The insects (especially the mosquitoes) will start to disappear and the conditions will be absolutely perfect for hiking and exploring the woods. Strolling through a forest with colorful, crunchy leaves underfoot is absolutely outstanding and if the weather cooperates we may have several weekends when we can enjoy some top-shelf forest bathing.
Twenty years ago, in September 2006, I decided to pay a visit to Savoy Mountain State Forest on one of those gorgeous days when the sky is an unbroken expanse of azure. At that point it had only been a few years since I had last worked at Savoy Mountain and I was feeling a little nostalgic about the time that I was privileged to spend there. The high-altitude forests of the Berkshires can be magical and this particular visit was textbook perfection.
I decided to visit one of the “lost ponds” that can only be reached by walking, or travelling on ATVs. The path was easy to follow, but it was definitely a path that required care if I was to keep my feet dry. Heavy machines had kept the path clear, but they had also produced numerous puddles and mud holes. Sometimes I had to leave the path just to find firm ground to walk on. It was a gorgeous place to visit and I reveled in the feeling of being entirely alone; that notion of “wilderness” where few people ever bothered to visit.
I reached the pond and I decided to just pause for a moment to soak in the splendor of the place. The surface of the pond was as smooth as a mirror and the reflection of the sky brought that saturated blue right down to the level of the ground. And it was then that I noticed that I wasn’t actually alone. I looked down to see a hint of orange that was moving. This seemed quite out of place on such calm day, so it certainly wasn’t a leaf. A slight adjustment of my field of view and I found myself staring at a young Wood Turtle (Glyptemys insculpta).
This little creature had a shell that was about the size of a coaster, or the lid of a jelly jar. I gently picked it up to say hello, but the experience was clearly alarming to the little turtle because legs, tail, and head were all pulled back into its shell as far as they could go. Time was on my side, however, because eventually the turtle became curious, bored, or both and it peeked its head out to see just what was going on. I snapped many photos (on slide film if anyone is old enough to remember that antiquated medium) and then gently returned the little thing to the same spot where I found it. All was well.
The Wood Turtle is one of our most gorgeous turtle species, but it may not be particularly well known because of its habitat. Unlike the Eastern Painted Turtle, which spends most of its time living in lakes and ponds, Wood Turtles are stream specialists. They split their time fairly evenly between aquatic and terrestrial environments. They also have a peculiar hunting technique known as “worm stomping.” The turtles will pause as they move through the forest and then they will start stomping their feet on the ground. They may even use all four legs to rhythmically bang their shells on the ground in an effort to flush out earthworms. The idea is that the seismic event confuses worms into thinking that it is raining, or that a tunneling predator is approaching. The worms come up from the ground and then go down the gullet.
Assuming that the little turtle that I encountered 20 years ago hasn’t fallen victim to a predator (like a Red-shouldered Hawk) or a car, then it should be squarely in the middle of its 40 to 60-year life span. It’s shell will now be the size of a salad plate (but not perfectly round of course) and there will be some exquisite ridges on the individual scutes of the carapace (sections of the top shell). The architecture of the shell, plus its gorgeous black-orange-graphite coloration, make it a very sought-after pet, which is one of the reasons that the Wood Turtle is considered to be endangered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
I haven’t seen another Wood Turtle since that one little fellow all those years ago. So, I might just take myself on another adventure and visit that lost pond again this fall. The odds must be worse than a million to one, but there is always that chance that we might meet again. I will have to move quickly, however. We’re getting to that point in the year when a Wood Turtle will decide to take one last breath of air before diving under the water in a stream and staying there (dormant, not moving, and not breathing) until spring comes round again.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 29 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more information visit www.speakingofnature.com, Speaking of Nature on Facebook, or the Speaking of Nature Podcast.