12 april 2009 - Kat learns many valuable lessons

So this was my first solo day observing/tracking the turts and it turned out to be a very educational day, indeed.

Lesson 1: 2 people with mad telemetry skills are far more efficient than 1 person with mad telemetry skills.
--> This was a 5 hour day for me.

Lesson 2: The batteries used to 'light up' a hotwire for an exclusion area (in say, someone else's research area) are apparently cyclic and give off a pulse that sounds exactly like the pulse from a turtle transmitter. Exactly.
--> Yes, I spent over an hour stalking the ever elusive all-weather battery. I was not a happy camper.

Lesson 3: Apparently, if you glue on a transmitter upside down, you get a very weak, pathetic signal - even if the turt is 25 feet away from you and completely out of the water.
--> The ultimate failure if you are the doh-head dumb enough to have tagged this particular turt (yep, that would be me).

In other news, the 3 girls we located last night were all still in their burrows. One decided to take a walk while I was stalking the battery and headed ~20m downhill from her original locale. Also, 2 untagged/unmarked turts were seen in the HP swale today, so watch your backs, dudes. I'm coming after you next.