The little white curled objects on the ground in front of hole are the shells of Turtle eggs. Since this nest was so far from water, my guess is that it was a Box Turtle nest. Raccoons and skunks are notorious for digging up turtle nests and eating the eggs. We find this often at our summer science camp. Fortunately, turtles lay large numbers of eggs, so if a few nests are undisturbed there will still be plenty of turtle hatchlings to carry on.

I just love this picture of the lizard I found at Big South Fork on an unseasonably warm December day in 2006. It was sunning itself on a log and seemed to be unfazed by a camera lens zooming in on it!