Top photo: Courtship display by male (foreground) yellow-bellied slider. By this time of year I should have seen six, eight, even a dozen female turtles walking along the paths here at the Museum. Each spring, our aquatic turtles leave the water in search of safe places to dig a nest and lay eggs. I’ve only seen three turtles out and about this season. Two of those were relayed to me by Animal Keepers Autumn and Sarah. One was an eastern musk turtle, theRead more
Posts tagged: #yellow-bellied slider
Spring Rolls Along
Spring continues to move along and the flora and fauna here at the Museum rolls along with it. Thousands, no, millions of neotropical migrant birds are moving through our area, flowers are inviting insects to pollinate themselves, tadpoles are becoming frogs, fish eggs have hatched, and an old friend showed up in the Wetlands. Warblers, thrushes, cuckoos, swallows, and many other birds are migrating north at this time. Most migrate at night (less likely to be seen by hungry hawkRead more
Some Spring Happenings
Top Photo: Immature plumaged hooded mergansers lingering in wetlands. I’ve been negligent in my duties and haven’t been reporting as often as I’d like to on the goings on in Explore the Wild and Catch the Wind. So much is happening, as it does every spring, that it’s tough to keep up. Here’s just a couple of handfuls of things that we’ve seen in the Wild over the past few weeks (not necessarily in chronological order). During the first weekRead more
A nice day to be out in the Wetlands
With daytime air temps reaching fifty-nine degrees on Wednesday (12/17), at least one of our resident turtles made it out for a little sunbathing. A male yellow-bellied slider was awakened by the intense sunshine of the day. The sun’s warm penetrating rays apparently reaching and warming the bottom of the pond sufficiently to stimulate the turtle into crawling out on a log and bask away the afternoon. It’s in no way unusual to see a turtle outRead more
GBH
If you’ve been down to the Wetlands within the last several months you may have seen a great blue heron (GBH) standing by a rock (boulder) out in the water some eighty or ninety feet from the Main Wetlands Overlook. You would have been looking at our current resident GBH. I say current resident because I don’t know if it’s the same heron that I’ve been seeing, just about daily, for nearly seven years now. Without physically markingRead more
Other September Sights
Top Photo: Magnolia warbler gleans insects from black willow tree. As many of you know, birds are on the move. The other day I ran into a group of neotropical migrants out on the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop. In attendance were common yellowthroat, American redstart, Blackburnian, magnolia, northern parula, and prairie warblers, and red-eyed and white-eyed vireos to name just a handful. I’m sure I missed seeing many of the birds that were around that day, but there’sRead more
Stacked and Happy
The two sliders were just off the Main Wetlands Overlook. One might think from their situation that space was limited on the log that they chose to perch upon. There were no other turtles present.Read more
Turtles, Turtles, Turtles
Over the past three weeks I’ve come across 13 juvenile Yellow-bellied Turtles. I’ve either spotted them myself at known nest sites or Museum guests and staff have spied them, and in some cases, brought them to me after finding the little herps wandering around the campus. Who knows how many of the turtles have gone unseen while making their way to the Wetlands here at the Museum. How many of the turtles wander off in the wrong direction, away fromRead more
288 Days Later!
As I walked past the northeast corner of the Wetlands, the area near the Red Wolf Enclosure, I noticed a small hole in the ground a foot or so off the path. I pass this area numerous times during a typical day and I always look down at this same spot. Why? Because last June a Yellow-bellied Slider that I’m familiar with was seen laying eggs on this very bit of landscape. As some of you know, I catch andRead more