Where you been Chip?

I have to say the east reservoir is jumping. All except one of our eight tagged turtles (including the formerly terrestrial turt 3) are in the east reservoir. Turtle 2 is still terrestrial and hopefully thinking about getting out of the heat sometime soon. In addition, transmitter six has apparently repaired itself and is now emitting a normal signal. Further, several non-tagged and non-marked juveniles were also part of the pool party this afternoon.




We had two surprises on this afternoons telemetry circuit. Turtle 4, a female who was tagged in the horse pasture swale last Friday, has made a 190 meter trek (as the crow flies) to join her former swale mate (turtle 1) and the rest of the turtles in the east reservoir. In addition, Chip- an old beat up male and former resident of the horse pasture swale who has not been seen for several weeks, has suddenly appeared in the reservoir as well. It looks like the beast has some competition as he was not seen in the res, but his signal suggested he was there.

As for other reservoir wildlife, a female Mallard was seen with at least seven ducklings hunkered down beside her. We have been seeing the pair of adults on the reservoir, but this is the first sighting of their chicks. We also flushed a lone male Wood Duck who has also been hanging around. I can only assume the female is in some nearby tree cavity waiting for those chicks to hatch. Hopefully we will soon have some more additions to the shrinking reservoir. As if the pool is isn't crowded enough.