I was in the City today to weigh and measure our head-start western pond turtles. So, have a couple of pictures of baby turtles! The one in the first photo is my favorite – #201, who was the tiniest baby hatched last year in the lab. (Only 3.32 grams when s/he hatched). S/he’s more than ten times that weight now. *loves* Also, a goofy picture of me. 😛
Went on a field trip today with the local native grasslands society (California Native Plant Society), although the site we visited was already very familiar to me – it’s our Western Pond Turtle field site in Lake County, California. It was different being up there and *not* looking for turtles. I learned some things about plants (which is good; I’m ridiculously ignorant about plants), saw and heard a bunch of great birds (including pileated woodpeckers and MOUNTAIN QUAIL! Only the second time in my whole life I’ve ever seen mountain quail).
The star of the day, however, was this little ring-necked snake. Such beautiful colors. Now I’m really looking forward to the start of my field season less than a month from now.
Last week, my lab partner and I went out to our field site to see if last year’s hatchlings had emerged yet from their nests. The female pond turtles lay their eggs in the early summer (June is the most active month at our site), and the eggs hatch approximately three months later. There is evidence that young don’t leave the nest, though, until after the winter, something we were able to confirm on our excursion today!
We were fortunate in being at the site at exactly the right time this year. We visited a few of the nests we’d located last summer, and found babies emerging from some of them. The sort of blurry photo shows the hole they had dug for themselves to emerge – I know it’s a crappy photo, but that really is a baby turtle inside. We also found a couple that were just in the process of coming out of the ground. It was a pretty amazing thing to witness.
Presented my poster again today, as part of SSU’s Graduate Showcase:
This week, I took my students on a field trip to one of my university’s nature preserves. Our primary goal was to survey some trees for Sudden Oak Death, but I never go to the preserve without the supplemental goal of making wildlife observations, especially since there are always at least a few students who tell me that this trip is the first time they’ve ever gone hiking in some sort of “natural” or wilderness area. I’ll combine photos from both days (I have multiple classes, so came out on two days).
The star of the show was this Rough-skinned Newt (Taricha granulosa), which I was able to locate on both day. I also loved this Southern Alligator Lizard (Elgaria multicarinata), Giant Wakerobin (Trillium chloropetalum), Pacific Chorus Frog (Pseudacris regilla), and Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis). I also found some gorgeously-colored Golden Ear (Naematelia aurantia) that appeared to be growing on False Turkey-tail (Stereum hirsutum).
I did something really cool this evening: went out and surveyed for red-legged frogs (Rana draytonii), which are an endangered species in California. We found four frogs, and they are SUPER ADORABLE! Also, I look like a total dork in waders, but it was a really good evening. 🙂
Note – in the photo with the three frogs, the two on the ends are red-legged, and the one in the middle is a bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus), a species that is an exotic invasive in our area.
While taking some time away from the annual meeting of the Western Section of The Wildlife Society, we visited a few places in the old downtown area of Sacramento, including the Old Sacramento Schoolhouse Museum, a replica of the type of schoolhouses that were found in the area in days gone by. The building was charming, and apparently they provide tours and an educational program for thousands of schoolchildren every year. (My son and I spent the day at a similar museum in the Dougherty Valley a few years ago, where his class was walked through a typical day in the life of a schoolchild from this era).
A small group of students from my research lab made the short trek to Sacramento to attend the annual meeting of The Western Section of The Wildlife Society, in Sacramento, California, February 1 – 3, 2012. This was my first conference after beginning the master’s program, and I worked with an undergraduate to create this poster, which we presented during the poster session:
We also had a pretty good time at the conference, and visiting a few of the sites in the old downtown area of Sacramento. Oh yeah!
This is one of our new hatchlings; the yellow “blob” on its belly is the external yolk. This is the baby’s nutrition source and will continue to be absorbed over the next several days. Sometimes they are MUCH bigger than this, and some hatchlings hardly have any.
Drawn by me. 🙂
