Saturday, July 26, 2008

Box Turtles and Hawk Moths - Falmouth, MA

[Not rock pile related - but I was looking for rock piles at the time]. Saw several beautiful creatures today - large and a small box turtles, which are more tortoise than turtle, and a sphinx moth ("hawk moth") of a type whose name I forget.

Here is a box turtle out in the middle of the Falmouth woods:Another view:Here is a smaller one I saw later:Another view:(Pretty cute). So I guess these box turtles are not as rare as I thought.

Back in Woods Hole, here is a beautiful little sphinx moth. I have seen more of these during my life than any other species of the genus. This is what is common around here.An all-time favorite:

5 comments :

JimP said...

In the fourth picture down, is the young box turtle stepping on a quartz projectile point with his front left foot?

pwax said...

I don't think so, the paths here have quartz gravel.

pwax said...

That evening, the same moth flew in through the open door and flitted around the room without much direction or purpose. I wanted to get it safely outside so it might have a better chance to eat/mate/live and I started towards it across the room with my hands held out to shoe it towards the door. But it flew up and landed on me, trustingly, and I walked it out, tossed it back out into the dark, and offered it what encouragement I could.

Tim MacSweeney said...

MA Box Turtle info:
http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/nhesp/species_info/nhfacts/terrapene_carolina.pdf
And CT too:
That turtle might never travel very far.
Up in the Mound Swamp, I once spotted what I thought was two box turtle shells somebody had stacked up, much like one stone on top of another. But it was a case of Turtle Love. I didn't have a camera on me of course - and it was before I had a digital camera and I could have been busted for traffiking in Turtle Porn...

Tim MacSweeney said...

CT link I forgot to add:
http://www.ct.gov/dep/lib/dep/wildlife/pdf_files/outreach/fact_sheets/boxturtle.pdf