Hi Everyone! We know we’ve been away for awhile but there’s lots of exciting stuff to check out in our vlog! Last week was full of fun-filled field days. We caught PLENTY of Blanding’s, along with many snapping and painted turtles. We also had a very unexpected guest in one of our traps! See who stopped by in the vlog. By the way, this animal was not harmed in anyway and was patiently waiting to be released. Carley also did some technical work at night. During nesting season, female Blanding’s begin to nest during the night time so Carley went out with some of the technicians to mark nests so they can check on them until they hatch.

While Carley was on night crew, Kayla had to make a trip down to Champaign so she could drop off a broken centrifuge. Recently our centrifuge, which we use to spin down plasma and PCV, has started to give us an error message. Last week, it finally decided it needed some maintenance work. Thankfully we were able to finish the blood work for that day and pick up another one from the WEL lab at the University of Illinois. It was a late night with important work on all fronts!

Check out our vlog below to see more about our week of trapping! We will be back soon to tell you about our next adventure!