More box turtle excitement

This evening, as I was wondering around the garden trying to decide where to plant a pot of Hippeastrum bulbs, I noticed Penelope the female box turtle in a flower bed at the edge of the woods.  She was digging a nest!

Digging the hole.  Or, possibly, laying eggs.

Filling it in

Almost three hours later, she has filled in the hole but is still tamping down the soil and pushing things around on the surface.  I plan to stay up until she moves on, and then I’ll cover the nest with a metal cage to protect it from raccoons/opossums/skunks.

When we saw her walking across the lawn yesterday, we didn’t realize she was an expectant mother—though that might explain why she ate her strawberry with such gusto.

As further evidence that box turtles are successfully breeding in the garden, here’s a juvenile that my wife discovered while she was weeding yesterday.

It isn’t an empty shell.  The owner is tucked away inside.

I am so pleased that our efforts to build an interesting and healthy landscape have created good habitat for the boxies.