Hazelnut 2's big day

At the beginning of the month, Hazelnut 2 was granted freedom. Of all my turtlets and all things being equal, I think Hazelnut 2 has the best shot of survival. Hazelnut 2 has got spunk and loves and loves to eat. The top pic is it after it's release. I wasn't there at the release, but I'm told after the initial shock of being free, it started chowing down on plants and duckweed. It then found an underwater sunny spot and started to bask once again in real sunlight. The night before Hazelnut 2 was part of a show and tell for children. Mind you when I first got it, it repeatedly tried to bite me so I was worried about hearing this. But I guess after the months of me handling it, it figured out not to bite the hand that feeds you. It even got a couple showers with a brush under the kitchen tap once it started getting brown and slimy. But considering the hot and dry summer we had, Hazelnut 2 had the best life getting big and fat indoors. Here I am saying my goodbye to the little champ.
Here's Hazelnut 2 when I first got it.

Introducing Almond and Macademia

Well, I'm a foster turtle mommy again. My co-worker found some painted turtles hatchlings coming out of nests in the ground. He harvested the 11 hatchlings and had been taking care of all of them on his own. His backyard pond has been drained so it isn't good habitat for the hatchlings. So here I go again! I certainly enjoy watching them and bonding with them, but I hate all the cleanup that goes along with it. It's no fun lugging all the water, tank, and all the fixins up and down to the basement and the every other week tank cleaning. So I'm downsizing their home in order to reduce the cleaning burden. Their new home is a medium sized tupperware with some pebbles for basking spots. I plan on buying a larger tupperware in order to accomodate their light. I figure they won't need a heat lamp. It certainly is warm enough and even warmer in the house, rather than the basement. Almond aka Al and Macademia aka Mac are relaxing on the deck right now soaking in the unseasonable warmth and hopefully some natural sun. I plan on releasing them in early fall back to nature.

Here's Mac in a quiet moment. Mac has a dot on its belly and is slightly bigger than Al.

Al was even more uncooperative during the photo shoot. Al has a nice orange belly thanks to the dried krill food.

Renewal

There's a few things I'm sure about. One of which is that if I wash my car, it will rain the next day even in a drought. I haven't washed my car in like a month and decided it was time on Monday. Cue the thunderstorms and torrential downpours. But the rain brought needed water, especially to the swamp where I released Cashew. I decided to check on it and see if there really were any turtles left there. I figured since it was so dry that all the turtles had migrated to the big pond. Sure enough, no turtles were seen even though the rain helped make it a real swamp again. The sweet pepperbush was blooming and fragrant. It was so pleasant out that even the treefrogs were calling. Here's my first test video from my work camera of the treefrogs calling.

I checked out the big pond and spotted a big snapper lurking amongst the duckweed. There were several more close muskrats calls. But as soon as the camera was out, it jumped into the muck.

One of the nice things about the swamp in the summer is that there are barely any people there. It's just me, the occasional overhead plane, and the sounds of nature. It's real tough to get actual silence anymore....at least silence from man-made stuff. So it's a nice respite after a long day of work in the office, which has become the norm rather than the rarity. Hopefully some fun field work will come up next week. Although it's looking like it's not going to happen.

Just what I needed

Sorry no pics for this super exciting post. Last call turtle search was completely fruitless. Just some green frogs twanging away. I then got a call from my boss who needed me to make a quick stop at a site before coming back to the office. I needed to take a couple pics of a wetland/not quite a stream. Well it was mosquito town. Head net was busted out but that didn't stop them from devouring my arms and rest of my body. I had been to this site many times before and this was the first time I noticed the so-called spring bear poop in at least 3 spots. Luckily it looked not so fresh but I call it spring bear poop since it has the consistency of cow pies.

This weekend is choke full of activities and events so I've been running around like crazy. But I still have to check my mouse traps in the basement twice a day and I noticed some water under the water heater. It got bigger today and I could actually see a drop come from the bottom and I felt a small hole in the water heater bottom. I really didn't have time to deal with this so I just cranked up the dehumidifier and hoped for the best. My dad is coming over tomorrow to investigate and potentially look into new water heaters. Luckily I still have all my info from the last incident.

Beavers and friends

So our insanely busy season has started this week and will go until June 15. It's turtle season plus a bunch of other threatened and endangered species surveys are going on or starting up. Papers, files, voice mails, and emails are already stacking up. Of course, everything has to be immediately attended to! But I had the chance to spend the day outside at a beautiful site very close to the office. It's a giant piece of mostly hilly woods with a big lake. There's a couple houses, a golf course complete with ponds, and some farm animals on it as well. There was a four day old donkey (donkette!) that I didn't get a real close view of...but next time. Snakes, turtles, and rare hawks abounded. By the afternoon, I was in such turtle zone that I had a hard time focusing at the task at hand which was delineating wetlands. I saw a tiny painted turtlet the size of Cashew when I first got her. I nearly fell in cooing and ahhing over the spectacle of seeing it swim in a pond. The one downer of the day was that we were swarmed by tiny flies. Thankfully I had my head net and wore it most of the day. When I finally took it off, I was overwhelmed by the brightness and clarity of everything.

Beavers had made this lake home. There were lots of chomped or nearly chomped trees. We found the lodge and there was at least one dam. Once we were done, we could either walk all the way the lake back to the car or take the so called shortcut. The shortcut was balancing along the beaver dam across the lake. I wondered if it was really a shortcut by the length of time it took me to cross the hazard covered in shrubs that threatened to push me into the lake.

Well Fiddle dee dee! The fern fiddleheads are coming up.

The turtles are out

It's official...well officially the season to start looking for the super rare turtle happens next week, but the other turtles are definitely out. The fever and unfortunately the competition at the office has begun to find the most turtles. Don't be alarmed. These pics are from last summer. It's just that I forgot my camera during the last field outing and my co-worker didn't feel the need to take any pics of the painted turtles he caught.

Seeing those painted turtles made me feel bad about Cashew. The wild turtles were out having fun and doing their turtle thing. So I set the date for Cashew's independence. It's literally Independence Day or sooner if the food runs out. It'll give me enough time for some more training and for her to grow. Yes. I'm really starting to think Cashew may be a girl. I'm also thinking of releasing Cashew to my favorite turtle pond. I was apprehensive about that because there is a snapping turtle that has a head literally the size of my fist...big enough to eat a little turtle. But I'm hoping Cashew will grow another inch or two before then.

I did get a chance to check out my co-worker's turtlets....and I do mean turtlets. They literally have not grown at all since they hatched September. I felt so bad....like I wanted to scoop them up and take them home and feed them. It would so bizarre to have a twin brother/sister that is like 4 times as big as you....or still be the size of a newborn years later. Something is just not right there. If you recall, this was Cashew at the bottom of a paper cup when I first got her as a hatchling.

Now Cashew's got weight and her shell is about 3 inches long....a long way from a nickel sized shell.

Here's my first video attempt on my camera and editing. It's certainly not "Gone with the Wind" here.

The turtlet update is that both have lost their egg tooths. Peanut pretty much refuses to eat the real food. He'll take a bite of the real food, mash it up, and spit it out. He insists on eating only the shrimp treats and the turtlets will duke it out to get one. I may have to do some tough love and only give them real food in hopes that Peanut will get hungry enough, he'll HAVE to eat the good food. But I feel bad since he's so little and I worry about him being hungry. They both have grown like a millimeter in 2 weeks and seem to be shedding.

The Mommy zone

Workwise, I spent the week working on big reports and going to meetings. No outside fun work for me. Next week I do have one day scheduled outside and it should be pretty nice. But again, more meetings and big reports are the main focus.

At home, I've spent many hours watching my babies...baby painted turtles Peanut and Cashew, so that partially explains my absence from blog country. Just like a new mommy....except different. I had the unpleasant task of cleaning their tank yesterday. Since then, I have decided to feed them in a separate tupperware to help reduce the mess. That means only one feeding a day for them during the week. But they were totally uninterested in eating this morning aside from the shrimp, which is really just supposed to be treats. I use it as appetizer for them. One shrimp each and then they should be gulping down real food. I measured and attempted to weigh them on a postage scale. The scale didn't budge at all. Peanut, the little one, has lost his egg tooth and his shell is very fat. Cashew, the big one, still has his egg tooth, and his shell is much more flat. My co-worker claims his baby turtle is a girl. But really at this age, you can't tell. For whatever reason, I refer to my turtlets as boys.

Introducing Cashew and Peanut

After some thought, I've decided to foster two turtlets . My co-worker had 15 turtlets from eggs he hatched and the nests he dug up in his lawn. All but one have been adopted. So here's Cashew and Peanut. Cashew is the bigger one and Peanut is the tiny one. I plan on keeping them until I feel they are big enough to adequately defend themselves in the wild. I already have the perfect pond in mind for their hopefully permanent home. Tonight is the first night they will be in the new pad. They have no interest in the food that I gave them. I'm hoping they are still working on that internal yolk. These two were the most active out of the bunch. Then there was Sleepy, who spent most of the day napping and when he accidentally got flipped over he made no attempt to right himself. Sleepy and a companion are being relocated to an artificial pond. Hopefully, Sleepy will be able to swim away from any hungry large green frogs. Birdman was progressively more disgruntled as the day went on. I was turtlet lifeguard and ambassador since they were right by my desk again. I tried to convince each passing co-worker to adopt them as they passed my desk and pointed out Sleepy and his bunch. I also pointed out my turtlets and told them their names. By the end of the day, birdman's face was bright red and he was ready to snap. Birdman feels that even fostering is wrong since the weak turtlets are a food source and would be depriving predators.

I'm Cashew. I'm more mellow than that rascal Peanut.

Cowabunga dude! I'm Peanut and I already gave my new mom a scare by immediately swimming behind the filter system.