September 10: Summer Camp at Piedmont Environmental Center Turtles Just Want to Have Fun

Nature Camp and Herpetology Camp at PEC

Imagine an old guy like me going to summer camp, but that’s just what I did. I had the chance to go to High Point and attend one week of Piedmont Environmental Center’s Summer Nature Adventure Camp and two days of Herpetology Camp. The 5-day Summer Nature Camp was a great experience. One of the naturalists, Tom Shepherd, has been supervising camps for more than 25 years.  The other Naturalist was once a camper at this very camp. She went to Appalachian State University and came back to work here. Some of the campers have been to this camp before and some were newcomers like me. The schedule covered just about every topic of natural history.

Each day, camp began with an introduction to the map of the day. The trail selected for our first hike was the Woodland Wildflower Trail. The Naturalists explained the 8 “tools” packs that go with us on every hike. Of course, the most sought after pack is “Herp tools” pack. It contains the most essential tools for working with wild reptiles and amphibians: calipers, scales, record books and pencils, two pillow cases, and three herp-jugs.  I learned that you can buy herp-jugs in the grocery store. They come with free peanut butter and parmesan cheese in them! The parmesan cheese kind are the best, they have the build- in flip-top air holes. I got to be put in the herp pack and a camper named Maria carried me.

With snacks in our packs, and our packs on our backs, we set off on the first of 12 trails we would follow through-out the week. Our first herp was a Fowlers Toad. A camper spotted it just off the trail next to an old log. Hard to believe I am considered within the same broad biological science as this odd fellow.  Over the course of the next five days the campers and I had spotted and documented fourteen species of herps including: twenty-one Yellowbelly Sliders, three Painted Turtles, one Eastern Musk Turtle. Unfortunately, no Eastern Box Turtles we found during my week at camp.  Campers also kept track of the birds, arthropods, fish and mammals observed during the week.

On Thursday, the campers have the option to spend the night. During the final activity of the evening, the naturalists shared stories and folklore about Eastern Box Turtles. One story explained how I got the markings on my carapace; they are the footprints of a little muskrat that brought the land-land up from deep down in the water-land to give the woman from sky-land a place to stand. You have to hear the story! I learned that my carapace is also a calendar. Each one of my vertebral and costal scutes represents a full moon cycle. The riddle is: 13 scutes but only 12 months, how can you account for the extra scute?

Herp Camp at PEC is two days of studying lizards, frogs, toads, salamanders, snakes and of course, as my pack friend from last week would say, las tortugas. We got really lucky for Herp Camp; it had rained over the weekend. The forest was moist and refreshed when we started out on our first trail. The first herps we saw were tiny American toads. Then, several campers called out with great enthusiasm, “Turtle!” A hatchling Eastern Box Turtle was walking across the trail. We took lots of pictures. This is the fourth year out of the last five that a hatchling has been found during the summer camping season. These documented sightings are evidence that there may very well be a reproducing population of Eastern Box Turtles at PEC.

Over the course of the next two days the herp campers and I observed and identified 21 species of herps, three short of the record that was set 14 years ago. So close! We found one more Eastern Box Turtle. She was captured and marked two years ago at nearly the same spot on the trails. By looking at her marks on her marginal scutes, the naturalists determined that she is turtle #33. The record shows she was recaptured last fall during one of the school fieldtrip classes at PEC. The campers and I helped update her weight and carapace measurements for the record book.

I left PEC camps like every other camper has left; absolutely worn out! I am told it is a tradition.