Top Photo: Three of five sets of new turtle perches in Wetlands. With our changing wetlands and growing turtle population, basking perches for our resident turtles are at a premium. As old snags and logs that used to be in the wetlands rotted and decayed it’s become tough for a turtle to find a place to sun itself. It’s sometimes a tight squeeze for our aquatic turtles. A half a dozen years ago, I tossed in a 10’ pine logRead more
Posts tagged: #basking turtles
December?
Top Photo: What December should look like. It’s December, for sure, but it’s been an unusually warm December, so far. We should enjoy it while we can. And, that’s just what Animal Keeper Autumn did the other day as she and Misha, our red-tailed hawk, went for a walk around the Museum’s outdoor campus. If you like turtles, this is a good time to see them. In fact, you may see some of our “light-sleeping” yellow-bellied sliders out and about onRead more
Turtles Seeking Sunlight
Top Photo: Sliders catching some rays. As soon as the sun returned after a couple of weeks of overcast skies, and 12 solid days of rain, our Wetlands turtles returned to their favorite perches to bask in the golden, and long awaited, sunshine. The turtles were crowded onto logs, boulders, and tree limbs. Where there was sun, there were turtles. There’s proof in the Wetlands’ water that at least one turtle that had come ashore to nest this past summerRead more
Waterfowl
The waterfowl situation here at the Museum has been sketchy as of late. With the shallow water being frozen at least some of the early morning hours, the groups of mergansers that we experienced earlier in the season have disappeared. They’ve apparently found better ponds and lakes to catch fish and socialize. Two mergansers, however, seem loyal to our site. It’s difficult to determine if the pair is indeed the same two mergs that I regularly see here inRead more
A warm winter day
After several rainy days at the beginning of the week, the past few days have been warm and sunny, days conducive to rest and relaxation. While over at the Red Wolf Exhibit… There’s nothing like a warm winter day to stretch out and soak up some sun. Read more
The Week Ahead
You can expect to see more scenes as depicted in the above photo for the duration of the week, the temperatures are expected to be in the 60s with at least one 70 thrown in. I saw six turtles out basking this morning. I expect to see more this afternoon. In fact, I expect to see many more later today. The turtles are waking up and I’m anticipating that every available perch, every rock, boulder, log, and bit of shoreline outRead more
Rare Sighting at Museum
The sun finally showed itself here at the Museum after over a week of hiding behind rainy, drizzly, stratus clouds. It didn’t take long before the turtles of the Wetlands came out to take advantage of the rarity by basking in the warm sunshine. A small tree has fallen onto one of the turtles’ favorite basking boulders limiting access to the spot. Even so, the turtles began filling up space on the boulder early in the day. Good day sunshine!Read more
Snappers and Mergansers, and Migration Notes of Interest
At least one pair of snapping turtles have already been seen mating here at the Museum and, as we’ve observed in years past, one of the big Chelydrids was seen basking on a boulder in the middle of the Wetlands soon afterwards. The second half of March is typically the last we see of our visiting mergansers, although the latest that I’ve seen them here was April 10, which gives them about another week and a half in the area.Read more