Notes on the lives of animals as they move through familiar and distant places.
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Unwrapping the Box: Seeds, Spores, and the Forest Inside the Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 26, 2026 In the last post, we began a new part of this Eastern Box Turtle series by considering the turtle’s gifts. In Western science, many of these gifts are described as ecosystem services, or the useful work a species does in a larger ecological system. That language can…
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Wrapped in a Box: The Gifts of the Eastern Box Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 25, 2026 In the previous posts in this Eastern Box Turtle series, we followed the turtle from deep evolutionary time into the present: through its ancient shell, its contested names, its once broad but now shrinking range, its remembered routes, its habitat mosaics, and the broken landscapes that threaten…
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Beyond the Box: Young Turtles, Interrupted Routes, and the Future of Eastern Box Turtle Landscapes
Eastern Box Turtles can persist for decades in changing landscapes, even as the conditions needed for their future quietly disappear. In this post, I explore what the scientific literature reveals about young turtles, population declines, skewed sex ratios, fragmented habitats, roads, mowing, and management. The story is sobering, but clear: conserving box turtles means protecting…
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Within the Box: Habitat Mosaics, Moisture, and the Seasonal Lives of Eastern Box Turtles
Eastern Box Turtles are often described as woodland turtles, but the scientific literature reveals a more complex story. In this post, I explore how Eastern, or Woodland, Box Turtles use habitat mosaics of forest, wetland, edge, leaf litter, logs, brambles, moisture, shade, and overwintering sites. Their home is not a single habitat type, but a…
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Around the Box: Home Range, Movement, and the Remembered Routes of Eastern Box Turtles
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 20, 2026 In the last post, I explored the early Western scientific descriptions of the Eastern, or Woodland, Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina): a turtle that early naturalists struggled to name, classify, and even describe, but repeatedly recognized for its most remarkable feature: the ability to close itself away…
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Drawing the Box: Early Descriptions and Studies of the Eastern Box Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 25, 2026 In the last post, we explored the overlapping ranges and contemporary taxonomic debates surrounding the Common Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina), focusing our attention on the most widely distributed and iconic form of the eastern United States: the Eastern or Woodland Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina). In this…
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Outside the Box: Range, Roads, and the Future of the Eastern Box Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D. In the first post of the Eastern Box Turtle series, we explored the evolutionary history of box turtles, from their origins as chunky, shellless, toothed, lizard-like creatures to the emergence of the domed, hinged, beaked turtles we recognize today. We followed that story from the earliest turtle-line reptiles of deep…
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Before the Box: The 260-Million-Year Story of the Eastern Box Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 15, 2026 The Eastern Box Turtle is one of the most familiar and beloved turtles of eastern North America, yet its story begins far beyond the forests, fields, and backyards where we encounter it today. To understand this small, domed, gold-mottled turtle, we have to travel through deep time to…
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Why Does the Junco Flash Its Tail and Other Notes
A winter storm approaches. Light flakes of snow dance in the air, and the birds forage and feast, fighting to fill their bellies before snow blankets their food source and enforces a period of fasting. The Ruby-crowned Kinglets are acrobats, flipping and bouncing through the trees. The Cardinals are confident, their size and boldness allowing…
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Deer Rubs
On Monday morning, I went for a walk through the riparian woods along the Eno River. On this familiar route, I noticed two trees rubbed raw, rufous-hued, wounded down to the cambium layer. These rubs are from deer, when a buck scrapes his antlers against tree trunks, creating signposts in time and space to mark…
Sense of Place 