Archive for May, 2015

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Diamondback Terrapins Gather in SouthCoast Mating Aggregation

Friday, May 15th, 2015

Beautiful Female Diamondback Terrapin #601

Thursday morning, May 14th, broke beautifully.  A gentle breeze nudged southerly temperatures into Buzzards Bay. Unfiltered sunshine did the rest, baking low tide drained mud flats into steamy saunas. Unquestionably a day for turtles!

Lucky Female Terrapin #7

We launched kayaks from Town Landing and headed for the major Sippican Harbor mating aggregations. Paddling through flat waters, we observed gorgeous female and handsome male diamondback terrapins gathering. Clearly, numbers were still light as many ladies and gentlemen lingered in oozy shallows, preferring to bake in soft mud baths rather than bask in the open air.

Handsome Male Diamondback Terrapin #28

Guys were snorkeling in the main channel, waiting for damsels to arrive. We spotted a few females on the bottom under mud mounds and gently tapped them on the shell, interrupting their sauna dreams. Needless to say, they were NOT amused … by neither the tap nor the dip net that quickly engulfed them.

Lucky Female Terrapin #7 Snorkeling in Shallows

One of the captured turtles had a very interesting story to tell. Female Terrapin #7 had been rescued in Central Massachusetts last year and released in Sippican Harbor on July 5th.  When we examined her yesterday after a summer and full winter in Buzzards Bay, she proved in great condition, having gained 162 grams (14% increase) and having found her way into the most popular mating aggregation in the area.

Juvenile Female and Adult Male (Right) Terrapins Sloshing in Shallows

None of the terrapin females yet shows palpable egg development, but the season is young, and mating aggregations are just beginning. We also spotted a number of very young juveniles playing hide & seek in “quick mud” tidal flats in water depths less than 2 inches.

Posted in Habitat, Marine Science, Turtles | Comments Closed

Baby American Eels Arrive in SouthCoast Estuaries

Wednesday, May 6th, 2015

American Glass Eel (Elver) [Anguilla rostrata]

On Sunday, May 3rd, the Turtle Journal team observed the first baby American eel (elver) of the season on the SouthCoast of Massachusetts. Transforming from the nearly invisible glass eel state, elvers remain difficult to spot as they swim and wiggle upstream through estuaries, rivers, creeks and streams to reach fresh water wetlands where they will grow to adulthood. As the week progressed more elvers appeared.

Last year, Turtle Journal documented the odyssey of American eels, in the article titled:  Saving Elvers on the SouthCoast of Massachusetts. Eels are the only catadromous fish in North America … as opposed to the anadromous salmon and herring.  That is, they are born as plankton-like critters in the Atlantic Ocean’s Sargasso Sea, float with currents toward the coast, transform to glass eels and then elvers as they make their way upstream to estuaries, swamps, ponds and lakes where they reach adulthood, and then swim back to the Sargasso Sea to mate and die. The opposite of salmon and herring (anadromous fish).

Elvers Fighting Gushing Water

We found elvers backing up at a local culvert. Spring flood waters augmented by snow melt seemed too strong for most of the elvers to make the passage upstream. Last year we observed thousands of elvers backed up at this culvert during the apex of the spring run in mid-May.

Elvers Resting in Backwater behind Culvert

On both sides of the culvert, a quiet backwater was created by the swirling creek. Elvers took refuge in these calm waters before making repeated attempts to traverse the culvert to reach the ponds and reservoirs upstream.

Elvers Take Shortcut to Wetlands

IF YOU HAVE AN iPAD AND CAN’T SEE THE VIDEO, CLICK HERE.

While elvers are extremely difficult to spot in the babbling creek water and even more challenging to capture, the Turtle Journal team scooped a small bucket of elvers and “crossed” them to the upstream side of the culvert.

Releasing Elvers Above the Culvert

No, we can’t personally save them all, but we can definitely save some of them; and we can lobby to have an elver passage created to save even more American eels on the SouthCoast.

Posted in Habitat, Marine Science, Marine Species | Comments Closed

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