The Weekly Scute: Tales from the Terrapin Team

Every diamondback terrapin nesting season has its stories. This summer, field research technician Leah Desrochers shares some of her news or—put in turtle terms—the “Weekly Scute”.

Monday:  A turtle call here, a call there.  You travel around the towns answering each one.  Your evening ends up at Lieutenant Island where you find a female in the act of nesting.  She looks at you as you silently wish you had seen her sooner.  She crawls away and you figure she abandons.  Yet a foggy pink egg lies in the chamber surrounded by its brothers and sisters.  You go ahead and finish it for her, adding the predator excluder as the final touch.  A fellow volunteer looks like a T-Rex as he follows the map of tracks a female left in the soft sand.

The tell tale signs of a turtle having nested (photo by Leah Desrochers).

The tell tale signs of a turtle having nested or attempted to (photo by Leah Desrochers).

The map was perfect.  You spot her up ahead as she dances on the nest she just made, packing down the sand and covering up any clue she was there.  You chuckle to yourself; if only she knew you had been watching.  You are about to leave the island when you spot a disturbance in the sand of the road.  You figure it was just your footprints from walking there a few hours before.  But thinking it’s better to be safe than sorry, you check it out proving your initial thoughts wrong.  You dig all the eggs out and relocate them to a safer, nearby sand patch.  It’s 9 p.m. and your day has been so fulfilling, so full of eggs and turtles, and so exhausting.

Leah relocates a terrapin nest

Leah carefully relocates a terrapin nest (photo by Rebecca Shoer)

Tuesday: A threat of thunderstorms and a tornado watch keep you alert.  Fewer turtles around the nesting sites though some have braved the weather.  No turtles stir aboveground while the thunder rumbles in the distance.

 

Wednesday:  Not a cloud in the sky and again you seriously regret not putting on sunscreen. You head out to the trails with a high school group to teach them about turtles for an hour.  Instead, you come across a nesting female and the half-hour long process keeps the group intrigued, but unable to continue down the path.

29 year old terrapin

29 year old terrapin (photo by Rebecca Shoer)

Holding the fidgeting female, you show them how to process her, tell them about nests and how to find them.  You teach them how to count the rings on her scutes (sections of her shell) to figure out her age.

Then you walk down the dirt road to find a turtle a public visitor told you about.  She heads up a side trail and you remain rooted to the ground, never moving, watching her.  That is, until she turns around and looks right at you.  You bolt to a tree and hide behind it until she passes by.  You follow behind her as she casually wanders down the road;  stop when she stops, walk when she walks.  For a half hour you and the turtle dance with each other. She never realizes she has a partner.  She’s a marked turtle, smooth and old with markings so worn you can hardly read them.  You feel honored to hold such an ancient individual in your hands.

Tracking a veteran nester. (Photo by Karen Strauss)

Tracking a veteran nester. (Photo by Karen Strauss)

 

Terrapin youngster (photo by Leah Desrochers)

Terrapin youngster (photo by Leah Desrochers)

Leah Desroches attended the University of New Hampshire  where she graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Marine, Estuarine, and Freshwater Biology with a minor in Animal Behavior. After falling in love with skunks and mountain lions during a stint with the Fund for Animals Wildlife Center in Ramona, CA , she is now back in New England working with her favorite animal, making her way toward her ocean career, and saving the animals one individual at a time.

 

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