More Turts in the Water

Yep. There are now at least 5 turtles in the pond. 4 untagged and turt #4, and one of those untagged turts with an orange bee dot visible on his bum! The dots survived the winter! Hopefully we can get 2 new tags this week to start replacing the failing tags. Also some big plans to utilize basking traps for capture this season. We'll see how it goes...

Pwned. Yet again.

Oh yeah, I had this brilliant plan to swap out the old radio tags before the turts went back into the water (thus reducing flight response and preventing the seriously beaten down old tags from flooding and becoming useless). But Turt #4 is a harlot. The little minx is already paddling around in the reservoir with an unidentified adult male. Did I mention it's January? Turt #3 has also left her wintering spot and is in transit, heading back toward the reservoir. Turts 1, 5, and 7 are staying put at the moment in their overwinter spots. Did I mention how crappy the tags are looking?



Turt 2's tag was also miraculously working today and I found her slowly meandering back in our general direction. The farthest she got from the res last year was a few feet shy of a mile away. At the moment, she is sitting roughly half a mile from the ERes and she still looks like she is in transit back to the pond. What a weirdo.



Game on. Hope you turt team members are ready to spring back into monitoring action.

It's a Great Start

So the reservoir is now officially at a higher capacity than it ever reached last year! Keep rain dancing! Dr Purcell (aka The Muscles) and I dragged a few good sized snags down into the shallows in the hopes of providing a little extra cover for the nursery area. Here's hoping the 2 clutches from last season fared well and were viable....



Dust off your waders, dudes. Go-time approaches.