Blog Post

Turtle Release

Released the turtles from the San Francisco Zoo today, and it was a lot of fun. I kind of love wading out into the middle of the lake. Not sure why it doesn’t scare me like a regular lake would, maybe because it’s not open water. Today we got a later start than last week, and also had to get final weights and measurements on the babies, plus renotching a few of them, so we didn’t get to the site until about 1:30. Still was fun, though. Hoping that tonight will be an active night out at the lake, and we get some new nests. It’s been a bit boring with how slow it got up here because of the rain. Although last night we did make one super cool discovery. Our first turtle this year, #240, was recaptured yesterday, gravid. This is the first time we’ve seen proof of a double clutch in one season, which I thought was pretty neat.
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By Wendy St. John, ago

June 29th

Another cold day up on Cobb Mountain. Only rained a little bit last night, and we were cozy and warm and dry in our tent. Today, it’s too cold to really do much field work, so I’ve spent most of the day in the Rec room, reading fanfic and doodling around on my iPad. We will go out for a four o’clock walkthrough, and maybe a couple of later ones as well, but I doubt there will be much turtle activity. So, another sort of long and boring day. I guess this is the dark side of field work, mwahahahahahaa! This might be the way the season ends – with a whimper, rather than a bang. Then again, if it warms up in the next day or two, we might get one more wave of turtles before we pack up our field camp on July 3rd. So, we’ll see. It’s been a successful season already, one way or another.
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By Wendy St. John, ago

June 28th

Rainy day at the field site. Boring and cold. Had a good conversation with Nicole, but the day was kinda long without spending a chunk of it chasing turtles. We did go out for an afternoon walkthrough, though, and found a couple of awesome king snakes (see below). Hopefully it will clear up – and warm up – by tomorrow. I’m cold, and I don’t really like it. Might even sleep here in the rec room tonight, since it will be warmer. Not sure how comfy it would be on the floor, though, even with my thermarest.
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By Wendy St. John, ago

June 23

Yesterday was a good day at the field site. I conquered my fear of the tree blind – I sat in it for about an hour and a half, watching turtles. I can now get in and out without any hesitation, and being up in the tree doesn’t make me feel sick to my stomach. I actually really like it now. Working on my fear of heights, one tree at a time. 😀
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By Wendy St. John, ago

June 21st

Still at the field site. Just found out this morning that the Oakland Zoo’s turtle release is happening on Thursday, so we decided to just stay up here a couple of extra days, instead of driving back today and back again on Thursday. Plus, there should be plenty of turtle stuff to do. We found eleven turtles out of the water last night, which I think is the most any team has ever found in a single day. Pretty cool, especially since there were just three of us – me, Kristi, and my son, and he wasn’t working the whole time.

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By Wendy St. John, ago

Cobb Mountain

Up in Lake County today, drove up with my son this afternoon. The weather is beautiful here, cooler than back at home, I think, which is good. It’s starting to get a bit warm for me. Apparently, there have been turtles galore over the past few days, so we should be busy at the field site this afternoon. Which is good, it will make the time pass quickly. I just hope we don’t end up being out there until some ridiculously late hour tonight. We’ll see.
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By Wendy St. John, ago

Western Section Poster

Me and Nicole Christie, coauthors on “Timing of Nesting and Nest Site Selection in a Northern California Population of Western Pond Turtles (Emys marmorata),” presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Section of The Wildlife Society, in Riverside, California.

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By Wendy St. John, ago

Turtle Research

Since I am pursuing a bachelor of science degree, I will be writing a senior thesis. Of course, this means that I first need to do some research, so I have something about which to write. It looks like that something will be turtles, more specifically the nesting preferences and nest site fidelity of western pond turtles. I spent a a good part of last summer doing field research at a site up in Lake County, and this semester I am working in the lab with the data we collected, but for my own project, and also for a continuing project on temperature-dependent sex determination in turtles.

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By Wendy St. John, ago

Paleontology Illustrations

One of the things we were required to do in Paleontology was to keep a notebook with field notes, and also illustrations of specimens we’d studied in class. I’m pretty happy with the way some of these drawings turned out, so I thought I’d post them here.

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By Wendy, ago

A Photo of Me!

If you’re wondering about the black thing on the turtle’s back, it’s a radio transmitter. This gravid female had been captured the night before and given an ID number, weighed and measured, and fitted with a transmitter. Then, she spent the night in my car. This photo was taken right before she was released back into the lake the next morning. Then, over the next few days, her radio frequency was monitored each evening in the hopes of finding her out of the water and laying her eggs.

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By Wendy St. John, ago