The wandering continues

Turt5 (aka the barracks turt) is still moving short distances around the building, seemingly looking for the basement so she can fulfill RGO's premonition. Turt 1 is still bunked down in the HP swale, under a large Eucalyptus. Turt 3 is hanging out near the old caretakers house now. Turt7 is still hunkered down at the base of the retaining wall. The beast is gone from his last known burrow (possibly back in the res). Turt 2 is now somewhere near inner mongolia, still moving around behind the Ag buildings. Turt 4 is still in the res (along with an unidentified male and a juvenile). Big thanks to KP for backing me up today. I'll get pics up later.

Absolutely nothing to do with turtles

Marmosets with Glowing Feet
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Kittens! Wee little Bobcat kittenses!

So the weird bobcat behavior of the last few weeks is now explained! We have a momma bobcat who is raising some newborn kittens down near the lower pumphouse. Thus, that area will now be off limits until the kittens are older. Do Not Go Within 40 ft of the pumphouse. Momma Cat no like it when you try and get closer. Current estimate puts the little gremlins at around a week old (still have their eyes closed). Here is some truly terrible video shot while perched in a dead tree about 50 feet away from the den.

Outer Mongolia (aka DAMN, turt2)

So RGO offered to accompany me on the 3am survey this morning. And it was a darn lucky thing for me that he did, otherwise I might still be out there, searching for Turtle 2. We located and wrote up the first 5 turts easily enough, but then we went after turt2, last seen by KP and Steven somewhere near the paved main road. We wandered farther and farther north, bushwacking through thistle and rockhopping as we went. The signal bounce and fluctuation was absolutely ridiculous. Eventually we happened across a drainage with running water (and lots more large boulders). We went down the drainage and met a very unhappy bull at the bottom. Then we went back up the drainage as the signal faded out. Then we circled around the same area for what seemed like an eternity before eventually finding the little girl buried amid a bunch of dried thistle and rock outcroppings. We took GPS coordinates and then discovered that we were well off the laminated maps that we carry to mark locations. When I located the spot on google earth after I got home, it turn out that turt 2 now holds the distance record. She is ~ .5 mile from the reservoir (as the crow flies, so she trundled a whole lot farther than that). RGO and I were in a bit of disbelief when we finally packed up and headed back down the road. It looks like the turts are done staying close to home...

Turtle 2 in the dirt

The Beast Lives!

Kat and I ran the 10 am shift this morning and found a lost friend. We spotted turtle 1 out in the open underneath a live oak and decided to catch up with her on our way back in from the rest of the telemetry circuit. Upon return, turt 1 was no longer visible so we used good ol' telemetry to narrow her location down. While checking possible burrows by carefully (and blindly) putting our hands in them, I felt the smooth carapace of a turtle and told Kat that I had number 1. Shortly thereafter, Kat probed another burrow and came back with "well if that is number 1 then who is this?" referring to another turtle's carapace in a burrow a couple of meters away. Turns out, my turtle was THE BEAST, that's right- turtle number 8 who's transmitter has fallen silent for some time now. What are the odds? The beast is now sans transmitter and officially off of our telemetry circuit. Turtle number 1 was palpated for eggs which were absent, indicating that she has laid. We are pretty sure the nest is in the vicinity of the poison oak pit near the pump house.

Turtle number 5 has moved a bit but is still at the bottom of the bank behind the barracks. And turtle 7 is behind the rock wall in the same location as the last visit. Turtle 2 is up under the fallen gray pine, and the rest of the girls are in the pool.

Me and my shadow

I've noticed that when I go up alone at night I seem to have a shadow more often than not. I'm not sure if he's hoping for a handout or just eyeballing the white meat, but I did manage to catch him out this evening trailing along behind me while I ran a survey. Also, the subadult bully in the reservoir went buh-bye. Long live the turts.

Turt7 is a roamer

Cris and I had the 2am shift and discovered turt7 has left the res again and is now back at the bottom of the retaining wall on the south side of the reservoir. She does like to pick spots with lots of rocks just to make it more challenging for us to lock on to her signal. She was easily 4-6 inches deep in the duff at the base of an oak/rock outcropping. Roam

The Vole Truth, and nothing but the truth.

Well, I ran back up to the range to check on turt7 again and to see if either of the gravid girls were moving around. Everyone was in the same places, except for turt7 who is now in transit back toward the reservoir. I flagged her current locale since she kind of looked like she was digging a bit.

On my way back to the office, I ran into this little booger. California Vole.

Keepin Cool

Well KP and Steven had the early morning shift yesterday and reported the same locations as Hawk D the afternoon before. I ran up at noon and found that turt 5 was still bunked down near the barracks (blue flag). Didn't get a visual, but she's definitely there.



Turt2 is maintaining her pattern of commuting regularly between the reservoir and a large downed gray pine (P. sabiniana). Today she was tucked back up under the pine.




And turt 7 led me on a merry chase thanks to all the signal bounce. I eventually found her chilling out, wedged in a rock crevice near her last known burrow. It was noticeably (at least 10 degrees cooler) down in the crevice. Smart girl on a 95 degree day.

Those Turts are crafty...... they get around

Well, It looks like everyone but good old #5 is back in the res. Ramon, Donnie and I met Kat up at the range today and found everyone taking a swim. We had an intermittent problem with transmitter number 2 but it seemed to resolve itself. It could have been from interferance from a helicopter that was flying over at the time, but we are not to sure. Pay close attention but if more problems occur it looks like we may have another crappy transmitter. We also checked out the scrapes down by the pump house, but no sign of eggs. Hopefully, they are still fatting up before they lay and we haven't missed it. Happy Turtle Hunting everyone :).

Nesting drama continues....

Well, I went back up this afternoon 4-6pm to check on the girls and investigate the poison oak thicket where turt1 was scraping away yesterday. I crawled up under the poison oak and to my great surprise discovered a large number of scrapings (10-16 at least) over ~10 ft radius. Some looked older than others, but all appear to be from the last few weeks. The dilemma is that none of them look like what I imagined as 'THE' nest (ie vegetated plug with egg chamber below; likely out in open grassland, etc). So now I'm left wondering what the heck is going on. The offending scraper (turt1) was still in the reservoir this afternoon and was seen foraging near the surface. I suspect she is laughing at us.

One of the scrapes....

Back in the pool

After a little bit of excitement, Turt 1 is back in the reservoir. I went up this morning at 11 and scanned the location where she was last detected by Kat. The signal bounce and fluctuation in strength in this area was proving to be impossible. On a whim I went to higher ground to sort it out, and thought... I should check the reservoir just in case. Sure enough, her signal triangulated to the shallow end of the reservoir and after 20 minutes I had a visual.

Mosquitos - 1,093; Kat - 0

Well, our girl (turt1) has not moved from the poison oak thicket where we three last saw her. I ran a signal on her every 2 hours (staying well away) since 8pm and looked for a visual at midnight and then at 4:15am. She hasn't moved an inch, tucked up in her shell. She seems to be snoozing away and hasn't made any new scrapes that I could see. The mosquitoes found me (sleeping in the back of the truck) at around 2am, so I now look a bit like I have the chicken pox.

KP is going to check the nesting girls signal around 7am and RGO is going to have a look around 11am, then I'll head back up to keep the afternoon/evening watch again.

At my 1am full survey, all the girls were right where RGO and KP left them.

Game On!

I hope this is not a little premature, but turtle 1 is exhibiting nesting behavior and is most likely getting ready to lay eggs sometime soon. Kathy and I located her this evening above ground and in an upright tilted position with her posterior end down in a scrape. In the vicinity there were three other scrapes within a 3 meter radius, most likely made by her in the last 36 hours. Hearing the news, Kat came up and is on watch as I write this. Returning to her site later in the survey, we found that she had moved off of the scrape on which we found her, but was in the immediate vicinity as indicated by a visual. Unfortunately, she has picked the most human unfriendly spot on the Range, with poison oak, thicket, rock jumbles, Italian thistle and mosquitoes o' plenty.

Turt 1 in position

Turt 1 from a distance (she is in the center of the photo on the edge of the veg)

One of the false scrapes

As for the other turts, it seems that they all got the urge to move around on us just to make our job a little more complex. Perhaps it was the heat and humidity? Turtle 2 is back in the reservoir after a brief stint burrowed under a fallen gray pine. Turtle 3 is also back in the res having been terrestrial for several days as well. They join turtle 4 who has eggs, but has yet to venture out on land (as far as we know). Turtle 5 has moved about 7 meters from her previous locale and is now even closer to the barracks. Turtle 7 has also moved within a short distance (~10 meters) from last burrow. She is now hunkered down on a rock ledge and completely covered with duff.

Turtle seven's new spread (location is in the center of the photo on the ledge)

Kathy near Turtle 5

No Changes

The pond is lower
Just where will the turtles go
Surely we will know

I was up this morning to cover for Hawk who is a little under the weather. Chris and I ran the telemetry at 6:00 am and found everything to be pretty much the same as Kat's last post. Turts 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 are all terrestrial and hunkered down in the same location as before. Turtle 7 seems to be in the same position in her burrow as Kat noted yesterday (see below). Turtle 4 was detected from the reservoir by signal, and turt 12 was seen basking on the log. No other marked turtles were seen.

Turtle 7

The milky sheen that Kat noted on the pond yesterday was not visable in the morning light.

Other wildlife- a male and female Wood Duck and a female Mallard were seen on the pond this morning. At least two families of Oak Titmouse fledglings were noted. Violet-green, Tree, and Barn Swallows were flying above the reservoir and drinking.

The pond thickens

So I ran up again this afternoon to check on 7 who is still acting a bit odd, although she is still in the same place as she was this (early) morning. Her back legs are positioned at a weird angle and she still seems to be scraping dirt back and forth with them. Here is a bad representation of it....



In other news, the pond now looks like someone has poured half and half in it. It has these odd mineral looking sections that are not mixed with the rest of the water. It also has a odd bluish/green hue to the 'creamy' sections. weiiiiiird.



Turts 4, 8, 10, and 12 were all seen in the murk. The beast (turt8) looks really algaed and appears to have a swollen/damaged right eye. We need to get that guy soon. An unmarked juvenile and an 08 hatch were also seen.

Turts 1,3, and 5 are all right where they have been for the last few days. Turt 2 is still mixing it up and has headed back to the downed pine, although she is now higher up near the trunk. I didn't get a visual on her because I was by myself and the tree stabbed me in the head when I tried to squeeze into the thicket. Fail.

Also saw this dude.

Turt 2, wtf? and a possible nester.

Well, the dark horse surprise of the wee hours of the morning was turtle 2. She has been comfortably hunkered down underneath a downed grey pine with a cozy little burrow. Until now. Now she is back in the reservoir, hanging out with turt4. Kim and I scratched our heads over that one for awhile.

Turts 3 and 5 were in the same burrows they have been in, and turt 1 is still out in between the two. Turt 1 is in this odd spot with part of her carapace exposed. She is partially buried, with her head and butt covered, yet she is in a vertical position up against a rock. Her bee dot was visible (and looked great), but the positioning of her body was very odd.




The other surprise was turt7, who moved again since RGO last located her. She is now hunkered down on the east side of the Res under a patch of ceanothus. She also appeared to be 'wiggling' in her little scrape, suggesting she was moving dirt with her back legs. Possible nesting behavior? I blue flagged the locale, so even if she moves we can probe the spot. She has been doing an awful lot of moving recently and her current spot did not look like clear 'burrowing' behavior (ie she made no attempt to really cover herself, despite ample duff to move into). I will likely run back up this afternoon to have another look at her and see what is the what.



screechies and great horneds were heard repeatedly. As well as a small pack of coyotes hunting nearby. Oh, and Kim got to see her first bobcat - trotting down the road as we cruised toward the barracks. Here kitty, kitty.

Its dark out there

I am hurting this morning from lack of sleep after being up all night/morning chasing turtles. I had the 11pm shift last night followed by the 3am shift this morning. Ramon helped with the night shift and Steven with the morn. Thanks Guys!

So here is the scoop: Turtle 1 has gone terrestrial and is hunkered down near a rock between turts 3 and 5 which are in the same location since yesterday. Turtle 4 is still in the reservoir. Turtle 7 has ventured out from the sanctity of the rock levee and has moved north in the the vicinity of turtle 2. Turt 7 is on the north side of a jumble of rocks in a shallow burrow with its posterior exposed.

Turtle 1 hunkered down

Location of turtle 7

Kat- here is the photo of diggings near turt 3. Her location is just above of the top of the photo under the mass of sticks.

Other wildlife- The Great-horned Owl was very vocal along with a pair of Western Screech Owls. At least one Violet-green Swallow was heard vocalizing during a sustained (5 minutes +) flight around 4am. Their calls started during my conversation with the Western Screech Owls. While tooting to the owls, the swallow (I presume since it was dark) flew within three feet of my head, then vocalized on the wing above. Not sure what that was about.

Drag 'em and Tag 'em part 4

Well, we had another go at dragging the reservoir today, hoping to nab any adults that had not yet left for the summer. Luckily, we did nab the 2 adult females with transmitters that we knew were in there. Even better news, they were both packing eggs when we palpated them this afternoon. This might explain why they have stuck around when everyone else has fled. Either way, we'll be keeping a close eye on those 2 (turts 1 and 4). We also discovered that The Beast (turt 8) is no longer transmitting a signal. DOH. That makes 2 dead transmitters only 4 weeks into tagging. Looks like we will not be monitoring the boys this season, after all. We also recaptured turts 10 and 12, which had loverly orange bee dots stuck to their bums for easy ID. I'm suddenly really like the bee dots for mark/recapture data. We'll see how they survive the dormant season. Pics from today...

Meet Turtle 12

He's a handsome young whippersnapper in his toddler phase. And a testament to why we keep the bullfrogs out. This little guy was one of the first babies born on the range after a long, hatchling-less bullfrog reign. At the beginning of 2007 he looked like this....



Now after some good eating (and a bit of protectiveness from his human friends), he looks like this...

Quiet Morning

SO. KP took the 6am morning shift and I tagged along to see whether the girls were moving or not. After much signal bounce (and a determination to find turt7 twice), we confirmed that the 4 girls were right where steph and I left them last night and turts 1,4, and 8 were still in the reservoir. We will likely have a go at dragging the reservoir again tomorrow to check transmitters on any of the turts we can catch and to get another round of growth data before the rest of them leave the rapidly drying reservoir....

Things is happenings

So Steph Meyers (aka 'the boss') and I took the 9pm shift last night and spent a long 4 hours trying to track down 4 of our girls who decided to go wandering. Big thanks to the boss for making the tracking so much easier. So, turt2, bunked down in a huge fallen grey pine and probably took the longest to get a visual on.




Turt3 has left her previous burrow between the pumphouses and moved farther east down the swale. She is hanging out in the pasture where the horses are (eek).




Turt5 is fulfilling RGO's dream and attempting to infiltrate the barracks. She was a non visual, although I stuck my arm down her burrow to verify she was there. Her burrow looks like this...




and turt7 was a bit of a trickster, hanging out right on the rim of the retaining wall amid a nice patch of thistle...