All in their place

10AM

I went up to replace the 24-hr timer with a 7-day timer on the receiver charger. Now it charges on only Mon and Thur from 12am to 4am. I also did a radio survey of the turts and they were in their usual places. #2 and 4 were a little tricky because of rock bounce. I didn't want to get too close because they're all probably estivating by now so no visuals.

I did not see much outside of a few birds, dozens of bugs and one lizard. Also saw some fresh scat on the trail from the barracks to the pond (likely from a small mammal ie. rabbit or squirrel). The ER pond is completely dried with the upper alluvial cracked and the HP swale is also dried up, though not as desolate. There was also less disturbance to the flora, leading me to believe there is less herd presence within OM.

I had to return my sister's camera so no pics. I'll go back up next week and stick to the "once a week" pattern.

Mostly same old, same old

Steph and I were up yesterday morning to check on the wee beasties. Turt 1 was located visually and was ~12 ft from the last flagged location. The only other surprise was turt4 whose signal had moved ~20ft from her previous burrow, but it took an eternity to get a visual. Mostly because we discovered that she had burrowed down in the dirt ~5inches, deeper than we have found any of the others, thus far. When we did get a visual, she looked in good health and was not exhibiting any kind of torpor or aestivation. She looked like she was hanging out and enjoying tunneling around a nice poison oak patch. Pics to follow. Also, I took a few more data sheets up.

Everything in their place

Thur 11am shift

Checked on all the turts and they were where they should be. The area around #3 looked more troddened/mowed down. Flag was also pulled so I replaced it.

I also plugged in the charger into my timer so now the receiver will be charging for only 6 hours a day. Hopefully, nothing catastrophic happens.

I did see a flock of birds in OM... wasn't sure if they were pheasants or wild turkeys. They were big, long tail feathers, dark grey and ran when they heard me coming. First time I've seen them at SJER.

EDIT:
After looking at a few pics, I'm thinking were probably wild turkeys.