Eastern Box Turtle - Luke Tiller
There are always a multitude of animals messing with my yard. Anyway this morning I was kind of excited to find a somewhat unexpected guest digging what I assume was a nest in amongst my Salvia. Much more fun to find this little creature messing around in the perennials than a White-tailed Deer or Groundhog. I am not very knowledgeable with most things herp but this was as I guessed an Eastern Box Turtle. There is a great site that the National Wildlife Federation run called eNature that has great online fieldguides to help ID those other critters that you aren’t an expert on which I use a fair bit. You can check out the website and the details for box turtle here. Best of all I read that they love slugs; so have at it young lady!
edit: Bummer – as with most all nature in CT it seems Box turtles are on the decline in the state and are a species of special concern. You can check out the DEP fact sheet here.
Under Clear Skies 