Shadow, the dog of camp’s outdoor education assistant staff, found these 4 box turtles near the meadow. Three of them were together with 2 males fighting over a female. This is the most eastern box turtles that I’ve ever seen in the wild in one place.
While I’m doing some team building activities with a group of 5th graders from Prairie View Elementary from Goshen Indiana, one student finds this baby eastern box turtle. These creatures can live to be over a 100 years old. I’ve never seen one this small.
Some of the maintenance crew found this dead milksnake near one of the roads at camp.
Here’s an eastern box turtle that we found during nature camp. They have great camouflage for walking on the forest floor in the sunlight.
As I’m coming back from lunch, I spot this Northern watersnake on the edge of the fen sunning itself. It doesn’t like how close I get so it takes a swim to escape.
It returns to the shore and I’m still to close so it takes off again.
It’s a gorgeous snake.
IMG_1322, originally uploaded by Camp Naturalist.
As I’m walking home from work I see this Blanding’s turtle in the middle of the trail. What a beautiful creature!
Hognose snake – found by the cross #2, originally uploaded by Camp Naturalist.
Some of the bethany christian freshman class found this hognose snake when they were out for a team building day here at camp. It’s only about 4 to 5 inches long. It looks like it just ate a toad. It’s pretty plump.
IMG_1206, originally uploaded by Camp Naturalist.
As I am returning from a walk around the peninsula, I see a truck stop a few hundred yards ahead. I get up to that spot and find this male box turtle. They were stopping to help this species of special concern get across the road. It’s nice to see that people care enough to help when they can!
cover board, originally uploaded by Camp Naturalist.
Some staff from the Michigan Natural Features Inventory are here at camp to put out some snake cover boards to do some research. These boards consist of carpet padding stapled to some thick plastic. Laying these cover boards in our wetland might yield some kirtland’s snakes. These snake spend about 90% of there time underground eating worms and therefore are hard to research. After it rains the snakes come up out of crayfish burrows and station themselves under these boards.
It will be interesting to see if there are some kirtland’s snakes here at camp.
IMG_9377_crop, originally uploaded by Camp Naturalist.
As I am going from the dining hall to the nature center in a golf cart I look down and see this 7 inch Hognose snake.
I love the way these snakes flatten out their head, putting out their hood to make themselves look bigger.
I didn’t frighten this one enough to make it rollover on its back to play dead, which they do just like oppossums.
Hognose snakes love toads. Seeing this guy(or gal) makes me think that the toads must be out in full force.
