Diamondback Terrapin hatchling on Cape Cod
I spend as much time as I can out on Sandy Neck Beach in West Barnstable. It is one of the most beautiful places on Cape Cod, and it engenders a communion with nature in my mind that I can find almost nowhere else near my home. On a deeper level, as if that weren’t deep enough, each time I visit Sandy Neck I am able to tap into a spiritually rejuvenating wellspring of natural energy.
I first visited Sandy Neck in the company of a high school teacher named Peter Auger. He was a man instrumental in my pursuit of Biology as a discipline, and also in the development of my connection to Sandy Neck. Many are the words I could write about my time spent there from that first day until now, but I would just like to mention my visit yesterday afternoon.
Each fall, I look forward to walking out the Marsh Trail which crudely defines the ecotone between the Great Marsh of West Barnstable and the backside of Sandy Neck, a barrier beach. On that first visit with Mr Auger, I was introduced to the Marsh Trail and to the hunt for Diamondback Terrapin hatchlings making their way to the relative safety of the marsh. This they do primarily in September and October.
Yesterday, October 2, I was walking the walk when I came across a hatchling making its way along the Marsh Trail. I have never lost the thrill of finding a small animal such as this moving with purpose seemingly dwarfed by the scale of the landscape around it, the danger surrounding it, the mystery of its navigation, and the enormity of its mission. It is not uncommon to discover the tracks of dozens of hatchlings without ever glimpsing one of the little beasts.
These tiny terrapins climb their way out of a nest buried in the sandy face of a dune, and then never having existed outside the shell before somehow determine the way to the one place they stand a chance of survival, the salt marsh. As an active field researcher years ago, I studied these animals through all the phases of their reproductive cycle. I spent a great deal of time observing hatchling behavior and thinking about how they were able to find the marsh, because clearly it wasn’t random chance. They were hatched with ‘programming’ of some sort, and had the ability to use it in an adaptive process. Right out of the box.
I decided to spend my time yesterday watching the discovered hatchling for the better part of an hour just to see what it would do. For anyone who has ever done this sort of animal observation, you learn pretty quickly that your mind will inevitable wander off into areas of thought that will begin with the subject in front of you. The longer you watch an animal do pretty much nothing, the further along the path you will likely go.
I thought about how it had been nearly 30 years since I had last really watched a hatchling this way for this long, and it made me think about how differently it seemed I was perceiving this hatchling today versus another one back when I was a much younger person. I thought about whether this particular hatchling was in any way related to one in particular that I watched for hours long ago. I began thinking about the relationship between man and hatchling.
Finally, I was no different from the hatchling. We were on the same mission, with the same purpose, the same tools, the same mystery. The sense of scale, it being tiny and me being large suddenly seemed irrelevant when each of us was compared to what was around us. Believe me, this train of thought had left the station, I was on board, and I wasn’t getting off. Of course, I’ve got frequent flyer miles – or whatever they call those credits you get on trains of thought – having made this journey often.
The point of it all, I suppose, is that I have learned over time that without that sort of regular immersion in the natural environment I lose the connection to the true purpose of all things. If you don’t walk the walk, you can’t talk the talk.
