Dusk had long fallen, bats were erratically flitting low over the water, and a moonless night was already enveloping the little lake in Springfield, Massachusetts, where I had been harassing a population of eastern painted turtles for several hours. I had decided it was time to head home for a late supper. Docking and securing the old wooden rowboat I was using required the use of a flashlight, its batteries so used that the beam hardly showed.

As the boat nudged the dock and I grabbed the tie-rope I glanced down into the shallow water just in time to see a smoothly oval “stone” scuttling across the plant-free bottom. And then the flashlight dieWhat had I seen?

d.

I grabbed my bike and quickly rode the half mile home, hoping as I rode that I had a couple of replacement batteries and that I wouldn’t have to delay my return to the pond for supper. I lucked out. Supper was waiting, a set of new batteries was found, and a few minutes later I was on my way back to the lake.

Almost sooner than it takes to tell this tale I was back on the dock, sweeping the sandy lake bottom with my flashlight beam. Within seconds I had locked onto one of the moving stones. Little and black, I could now see a pointed nose on one end and a stubby tail on the other.



Between these were the little black legs that propelled the creature in bursts of speed between which it foraged agilely and avidly on the bottom. A soggy piece of bread discarded by a fisherman, a broken half of worm, a portion of a dead shiner—as I watched, all proved grist for the mill of this little turtle—a common musk turtle, Sternotherus odoratus, aka the Stinkpot.



I was soon soaked to the skin but before returning home that night I had seen and inspected more than half dozen. It was an educational introduction to a species I had never even imagined dwelt in our area.