Garden Pic Wednesday: Turtle Friends

Today's Garden Pics are various Eastern Box Turtle friends that visit my yard:

I caught this shot one rainy day last week:

This block path runs along the South wall bed. Actually it channels water away from my front door to my back yard and this Boxie girl was very intently toddling her way down it to my back yard. I happen to know she is female--but only because it's mating season and well, that's helped me identify who's male and who's female. This one has already mated.

Interesting fact: a female box turtle can lay fertile eggs from one mating session for the next 4 years! And she is completely able to choose when she's ready to lay. Also the temperature at the time eggs are laid determines whether the hatchings are all male or all female!

This shot is one of my regular visitors enjoying a cooling soak in my "birdbath" dish.
They like to get in on a hot day for 15 or 20 minutes.
This Boxie has albino face markings and he's been hanging around my yard for over 10 years. I just figured out this year, he's a "he."
 They like my yard because there's lots of shrubs to hide under plus the back corner is naturalized and thick with pine needles and mulch they can hide under. I generally see anywhere from 3 to 5 regularly year to year.
Box Turtles are territorial and they will inhabit as certain space. I've seen another male Boxie and Albino Face "fighting" a couple times--clearly both male. Albino-face was smart enough recently to shut himself up tight in his shell when confronted by the other male, who aggressively kept head-butting his shell, knocking him about. He stayed inside his shell until the other left, then popped out and walked off.
Turtle life. What can one say? 

Eastern Box Turtles are considered "vulnerable" which isn't quite "endangered," but getting close. 

If you see them out in the wild, leave them in the wild. Wild turtles do not thrive well in captivity or live as long. 

They are omnivorous, meaning they eat anything: earthworms, snails, slugs, mushrooms, berries, fallen fruit, grasses, weeds--even carrion.
I saw a young Boxie once standing in a puddle in my back yard on a rainy day, slurping  earthworms!
They really love watermelon rinds. They also love tomatoes and bell peppers and have no qualms about munching low-growing vegetables if you have a ground level garden.

And Nasturtium flowers. I've seen them eat those, too.