{"id":3814,"date":"2019-05-28T19:57:09","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T00:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/?p=3814"},"modified":"2020-04-11T21:02:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T02:02:01","slug":"week-1-getting-my-bearings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/week-1-getting-my-bearings\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 1: Getting my bearings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello again!\u00a0 I promise I haven’t forgotten about you guys; it’s been difficult to update my blog with all my adventures the past couple weeks since I haven’t had access to internet!<\/p>\n

So much happened during Week 1, I hardly know where to start!\u00a0 The first week was filled with fun, new experiences, friendly visits from colleagues, and a few unexpected challenges.<\/p>\n

Day 1: Box Turtle Team<\/strong><\/p>\n

To get back into the swing of field season and brush up on some fieldwork skills, I joined the Box Turtle Team for their first day of the season out with John Rucker and the Boykin spaniels!\u00a0 I got my start in the WEL after going out for turtle team last summer, so it was great being back out hiking with the team and the turtle dogs.<\/p>\n

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Dr. Allender and John Rucker giving their annual Turtle Team introduction!<\/p><\/div>\n

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One of the amazing Boykin spaniels showing off her find – stolen from last year<\/p><\/div>\n

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Practicing counting white blood cells using hemacytometers – a skill I will be using all summer!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Day 2: Move<\/strong>-In Day<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Leaving for Kane County with Flat Matt<\/p><\/div>\n

I moved into the farmhouse that the Kane County Forest Preserve District so generously offered up for me to use for the summer!\u00a0 The house was rusticly beautiful and spacious, but as it had been vacant for the last couple of years, there were a few things that needed fixing up.\u00a0 \u00a0The biggest issues were the plumbing and the lack of internet.\u00a0 Luckily there were showers at the Turtle Shop where I do my lab work, but the lack of internet has made it difficult to keep you guys updated!<\/p>\n

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Day 3: Lake County Visit<\/strong><\/p>\n

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First time in waders and way too excited about it<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Since most of my experience working with turtles has been with the Eastern Box Turtle, I needed a chance to get comfortable working with Blanding’s in general before going solo with the turtles in Kane County!\u00a0 So on Day 3, I headed a little farther north to meet up with my Lake County counterpart, Kirsten.\u00a0 I got the opportunity to meet the wonderful wildlife biologists and technicians she will be working with and join them all in the field for the day.\u00a0 I tried out my waders for the first time and got a taste of what it’s like wading through the wetlands – and I only fell on my butt twice!\u00a0 Let me tell you, it’s quite the leg workout!\u00a0 Kirsten, having worked with Blanding’s last year, had plenty of wisdom to impart.\u00a0 She showed me how to find a good, dry spot to work up my turtles without drowning my equipment, and gave me some pointers for getting quality samples, as well as performing a quick and efficient physical exam.<\/p>\n

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Kirsten giving me a quick tutorial in radiotelemetry<\/p><\/div>\n

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Taking a few measurements on Ester<\/p><\/div>\n

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The second time I landed on my butt<\/p><\/div>\n

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Day 4: My first field day<\/strong>\u00a0on my own!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in Kane County, I got to meet some of the people I’ll be working with this summer from the Kane County Forest Preserve District.\u00a0 On my first day out, we caught and sampled 8 painted turtles out in the field, 6 of them in the same trap!\u00a0 I had to do my best to work quickly and efficiently to limit the stress of the animals, and because this was only the first field site, so we had a lot still to get to that day.<\/p>\n

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William Graser<\/strong>, Wildlife Biologist of the Kane County Forest Preserve<\/p><\/div>\n

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Taylor Joray<\/strong>, head Wildlife Field Technician<\/p><\/div>\n

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Jess Lindberg<\/strong>,\u00a0 seasonal Wildlife Field Technician<\/p><\/div>\n

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Checking one of our hoop net traps for turtles. This one had 6 painted turtles in it!\u00a0 The Gatorade bottle isn’t garbage – we put bait in them so it doesn’t float away!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Day 5: Dr. Laura and You Na come to my aid!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Teamwork is the most efficient and least stressful way to obtain our samples!<\/strong><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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On Wednesday night, Dr. Laura Adamovicz, a veterinarian and post-doctoral researcher in the WEL, and You Na Jeon, a visiting fourth-year veterinary student on externship from the University of Wisconsin came up to stay with me to assist with field and lab work for the next two days.\u00a0 They arrived just in time because even though the weather was cold and rainy, we captured 10 more painted turtles and 2 juvenile Blanding’s on Thursday!\u00a0 Having a couple of extra sets of hands in the field helped move things along and cut our lab work time significantly.<\/p>\n

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Day 6: Flat tire and no turtles…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friday was off to a rough start when I woke up to find that my field car had a flat tire.\u00a0 Turns out I had picked up a nail or screw along the way and put a leak in my tire.\u00a0 It was just lucky timing that this happened while Dr. Laura was visiting, so we had another field vehicle to use for the day while I tried to figure out how to get the tire replaced.<\/p>\n

It was also day two of some cold and nasty weather, so our all our traps came up empty, save a couple of common snapping turtles.\u00a0 While we were a little disappointed not to find anymore painted or Blanding’s turtles, it was nice to have an afternoon off of labwork after a number of late nights this week!\u00a0 \u00a0And it gave me the opportunity to deal with my flat tire.\u00a0 Since the field vehicle is a rental car, I had no spare or jack in the car and had to contact a tow service.\u00a0 After quite a bit of hassle and a few hours dealing with the tire shop, a few different tow services, and the car rental company, I was able to get the vehicle towed and the tire replaced!<\/p>\n

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Dr. Laura Adamovicz<\/strong>, DVM, PhD – top left
You Na Jeon<\/strong>, 4th year vet student – bottom<\/p><\/div>\n

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Dr. Laura found more than turtles<\/p><\/div>\n

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Wading through the wetland is a real leg workout! #everydayislegday<\/p><\/div>\n

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Apparently, I was as surprised to see her as she was to see me!<\/p><\/div>\n

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No painted or Blandings turtles, but we caught a couple of common snapping turtles!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Week 1 Highs:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  • SO MANY LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES<\/li>\n
  • Finding 10 turtles at one field site in one day!<\/li>\n
  • 24 total turtles captured, sampled and released this week!<\/li>\n
  • Just being outside and active rather than sitting at a desk studying is absolutely heavenly<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Week 1 Lows:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    • The flat tire for sure<\/li>\n
    • No internet or working shower at the farmhouse<\/li>\n
    • Forgot my sunscreen the very first day and sunburned only my lips (didn’t know that was possible) and right forearm… already working on the weirdest field season tan ever<\/li>\n
    • I’m apparently more technologically challenged than I previously realized – more than once this week,\u00a0 after attempting to take a video, I found I had actually just taken a burst of about 60 photos<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Overall, this week was an absolute BLAST!\u00a0 Meeting up with Kirsten to get a taste of Blanding’s fieldwork really helped me get started and Dr. Laura answered so many questions I didn’t even know I had to better streamline my sampling in the field and subsequent sample processing back at the lab.\u00a0 I still can’t believe how lucky I am to be able to do this –\u00a0 to spend every day outside in nature, combining medicine, research, and wildlife biology to help save the world, one turtle at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Hello again!\u00a0 I promise I haven’t forgotten about you guys; it’s been difficult to update my blog with all my adventures the past couple weeks since I haven’t had access to internet! So much happened during Week 1, I hardly know where to start!\u00a0 The first week was filled with fun, new experiences, friendly visits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,34,59,78,33,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-aquatic-turtles","category-blandings-turtle-blog","category-kane19","category-turtles","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3814"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3865,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814\/revisions\/3865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}