My tiny turtle friend!
It was the best of times, it was the worst turtliest of times. What were these two turtles you ask? Spotted & Eastern Box turtles, of course! This was sadly the last week that I got to work with spotted turtles, but it did not disappoint! Like before, we set traps on Monday and went out every day to check for turtles & re-bait with sardines. On Wednesday we found the cutest turtle I have ever seen in my life, and I may or may not have shed a single tear for how tiny and perfect he was. At a whopping 20 grams, this was the smallest turtle I have worked with so far, and my new favorite.
This week was also exciting because we found a juvenile hognose snake crossing the road! We all took some pictures as we waited for it to safely cross the road, and then went to find our turtle friends. On another one of our daily drives to the wetlands, we found TWO new box turtles on & near the road.
During the weekend, I had the incredible opportunity to go sample box turtles with Kyle,
a field tech from Oxbow Associates. He was doing evening nesting surveys on Eastern box turtles off base and was able to track the turtles at lightening speed! By the time I was done with one turtle, he usually had two waiting for me. None of the gravid females were nesting when we found them, but he is hoping that they will nest in the next couple of weeks! Finding these turtles in the late evening called for some late nights in the lab to process their samples, but this was nothing some music and snacks couldn’t solve.
Total Turtle Count = 96
