Turtlely Awesome Night

Last night my Master Naturalist chapter meeting met in Carlos Avery where a herpetologist trapped turtles for us.  He also trapped some minnows, some diving beetles, and two wood frogs.  The trap is on the left (shallower) side of the open water way and is strung between two wooden stakes.  The mesh trap has 3 funnels.  At the rear of the trap is a pop bottles filled with sardines and poked with holes so the delicious aroma attracts the turtles.  He set the trap on Monday.  You can see the rounded top of the mesh trap (just left of center in the photo) between the two poles.  Some of the mesh is above the water so the turtles can come up for air.

He set 3 turtle traps and two minnow traps.  This was the earliest he had ever trapped turtles so he wasn't sure he'd get any.  But he got at least 30 painted turtles.  See the long, sexy fingernails of the male painted turtle above?  Male painted turtles attract their mates by dangling their fingernails in her face.  The painted turtles came in all sizes from extra small to extra large.

He caught 3 Blanding turtles.  All three were large and at least 40 years old.  The reason we worry about Blanding turtles is that only older ones are found.  Blanding turtles below the age of 20 are not found and that is concerning.

The kids in the group were happy to hold all the turtles.  The closer Blanding turtle has a leech on it sucking the algae off the plastron.

At the end of the evening we set the Blanding turtles down so they could go home.  One of them took off.  See how he extends his right hind leg?  The other two were too cold or too scared to come out of their shell so we put them down on the water's edge for safety.