Well I am finally in the mood to produce another blog post or two, it has been far too long. I had been spending some time on the tracks with very limited sightings so for the first two weeks back from California I really hadn't been taking photos. Oh, yeah then there was the kitchen renovation that we had to get through.
On the fifth I headed eastward for a bit of a change, and witht he recent rain was happy to see all the brooks running and the water levels getting back to normal. Here is a shot of a little stream that is very tough to get close to.
The only bird that presented a good opportunity was this Golden-crowned Kinglet.I had been talking with a new neighbour for about 10 minutes when this little fella came to investigate.
On the 8th, we were having a beautiful day and Clarence called so we decided to do a little turtle work that we had been discussing all fall. Before I had to leave to meet Clarence I had a meeting with these two beautiful ladies that popped in for a bit to eat.
We headed out to investigate a couple of "holes" we had found during September and October, I wanted to determine if they were actually turtle hatchling "escape" holes. While digging our first suspected spot we found turtle egg shells, so Clarence kept escavating. At one point he pulled this unit out of the hole saying that he thought he had seen some movement. So we lay it up on the rail tie to get some sun heat, to see if we could encourage it.
Here is the little creature with a pile of some 50 shells that Clarence was able to discover in the the nest.
Clarence escavated the second nest of the day. This was an opening that I first noticed on September 29th. We uncovered 60 shells in this nest, 5 of which had not hatched. After digging the second nest out, we took another look at our little "foundling" and noticed a little movement. So I mentioned to Clarence we should get a little water on it and see how it responds. After a while he called to me and we took this image.
I am always amazed at how perfectly formed they are when they come out of the eggshell. Check out the little claws and the beautiful eye on this little foundling.
The spot in the middle of the underside (plastron) is where the turtle was connected to the yolksac that fed it through the summer.
We went back up and had a look at the unhatched eggs and four of the were definitely too light and had creases in them. The last egg suffered a little mishap and revealed the interior. It was another unviable egg, but you could see that the turtle had begun to form, but didn't finish the transition.
Unfortunately none of my images of the little foundling in the water turned out, or I would have posted one here. I will end this post here with the last Snapping Turtle rescue of the season. What a tremendous feeling to be able to see the little critter get to the water where it needs to be for the winter. I can hardly wait until the spring when we will start looking for these beauties again.
Take some time today, and put a little "wild" in your life!
Turbo
What a beautiful day, that must have been, photos are great Paul!
ReplyDeleteChristine, it was a Wonderous day :)
DeleteTurbo