{"id":5115,"date":"2001-05-03T15:11:54","date_gmt":"2001-05-03T20:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=5115"},"modified":"2010-03-09T15:41:02","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T20:41:02","slug":"warm-and-murky-%e2%80%94-3-may-2001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=5115","title":{"rendered":"Warm and Murky \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 3 May 2001"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"05-03-1<\/a><\/p>\n

Female Diamondback Terrapin Paddles through the Rip<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Air and water temperatures in Blackfish Creek both reached 72 degrees this afternoon under intense sunshine and reinforced by a 5-to-10 knot southwesterly breeze.\u00c2\u00a0 Visibility in the rip dropped to nearly opaque and seemed more like August than May.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtles approached the rapids, snorkeled for air and checked for predators, spotted yours truly and his net, and dove for perfect cover into the murky brine.\u00c2\u00a0 I stood within a foot of a mature female and still couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find her.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

But as water levels drained from the creek with the dropping tide, conditions were balanced and the last set of turtles to flow through the rip were easier to detect.<\/p>\n

\"05-03-2<\/a><\/p>\n

Matt Suess Documents Terrapin Research<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u00c2\u00a0netted four terrapins: two males and two females, one of each were recaptures.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the\u00c2\u00a0finest photographers\/videographers\u00c2\u00a0in the Land of Ooze, Matt Suess of the Cape Cod Times (see http:\/\/www.mattsuess.com<\/a> for Matt Suess Photography), joined the afternoon roundup to document our research and conservancy program.\u00c2\u00a0 One perceptive comment: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who said turtles where SLOW?!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

An\u00c2\u00a011 centimeter male, #802, was last seen on 31 July 1999 when he was paired with a female terrapin in the deeper section of Blackfish Creek.\u00c2\u00a0 Smallish for his 9 years of age, while he has\u00c2\u00a0grown linearly about .15 centimeters all around in the last 21 months, he dropped from 226 grams to 210 grams in weight.\u00c2\u00a0 The other male, only a 7-year-old, had already surpassed #802 with 12.5 centimeters length and 278 grams.\u00c2\u00a0 The new female was over 13 years old, stretched to nearly 19 centimeters, and hit the scales at 1242 grams.<\/p>\n

\"05-03-3-4<\/a><\/p>\n

Female Terrapin #365\u00c2\u00a0Then July 2000 and Today May 2001<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But the final capture of the day proved the most interesting: Terrapin 365.\u00c2\u00a0 She was first observed nesting on Lieutenant Island in 1996.\u00c2\u00a0 Last year, I received a call at midnight from a vacationer on the island who had spotted a terrapin crossing the main road.\u00c2\u00a0 Yep, it was 365 on an aborted\u00c2\u00a0nesting run at flood tide on Bastille Day\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s full moon.\u00c2\u00a0 Four days later, she made another nesting run, this time successful.\u00c2\u00a0 She\u00c2\u00a0dug Nest 107 on a low dune at the edge of the marsh, depositing 9 perfect and viable eggs.\u00c2\u00a0 After she finished laying, her weight dropped to 982 grams.\u00c2\u00a0 This afternoon, #365 was 146 grams heavier.\u00c2\u00a0 And a comparison of her carapace from last July to today shows how well she cleaned up the algae\u00c2\u00a0load from last summer.<\/p>\n

\"05-03-5<\/a><\/p>\n

Terrapins Scatter When Released in Blackfish Creek Rip<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, after quick processing, these four turtles were released from temporary captivity on a tidal sandbar and scattered in perfect disharmony, each one headed in a different direction, with the sole exception of tiny #802 who chose to pull inside his shell and wait for the mountain to come to Muhammad \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or in his case, for\u00c2\u00a0the tide to rise to him.\u00c2\u00a0 Who said turtles were DUMB?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Female Diamondback Terrapin Paddles through the Rip Air and water temperatures in Blackfish Creek both reached 72 degrees this afternoon under intense sunshine and reinforced by a 5-to-10 knot southwesterly breeze.\u00c2\u00a0 Visibility in the rip dropped to nearly opaque and seemed more like August than May.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtles approached the rapids, snorkeled for air and checked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5115"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5124,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5115\/revisions\/5124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}