Some rehabilitation and a new "spot" 20180527 Clarence and Paul do some site work and visit a new site

Sunday morning and Clarence and I are in the truck to so some site inspections and explore an area we wanted to checkout last fall. Our First spot was in one of our Windsor locations where the snappers had terrific success last fall. We had our rakes and a shovel with us and needed them both. This first "rehab" just needed some raking and smoothing before the nesting season.

The next spot started s quite a indentation in the hillside that these snappers use. Here is a shot after we loaded the first several shovels full of material.

It is tough to get the proper perspective on some of these images. The "hole" was about 10 inches (25cms) deep. We raked to recover some of the local gravel that had washed into the pond.

As there was not a lot of sand mixed in with this "washed" material, we had to find a little local mud to add to the the layers of gravel we tossed in. 

 Once we finished, with a little sunshine to dry out the damp material, you wouldn't even know we were there.

Even where we recovered the gravel, you would scarcely see any impact of what we did.

We then headed into our targeted investigation area, and we were very pleasantly surprised by what we found! We met some of the local cottage owners and they were very aware and knowledgeable about the local snappers. The were quite gracious and encouraging in letting us walk our area of interest. Now for the "good news/bad news": we found a high concentration of activity with 27 predated nests from last year. There may have been even more, those were just the nests we could count due to the presence of egg shells. We were also told of a nest that was located in the yard of one of the Cottager's.
We would like to thank Myrtle, Donna, Carl, and Steve for their time and willingness to work with us on the Turtle Patrol!
On the way home we stopped in at two areas where we had single nest success stories last fall and did some raking and shoveling to encourage snappers to lay there again this year.
So three sites visited and rehabbed, and new hot spot to keep an eye on this fall, a really successful day.
We are always looking for volunteers to help with work of this nature, so drop us a line and see if you can help out!

Yours in turtling,
Turbo

A little late with this post, but thought I better get it up as soon as I could. Happy Turtle day!

Welcome to World Turtle Day! To celebrate the Turtle Patrol has created a new Facebook page called Turtle Patrol Nova Scotia. The Turtle Patrol's goal is to help our native turtles survive in the wild, to share turtle news and to talk turtles with like minded individuals. If interested you can join us by clicking on the following link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1467598523346553/

We look forward to conversing with you!
Yours in turtling,
Turbo

First big Turtle release (20180511) Working with Hope For Wildlife

Well the big day has finally arrived May 11, 2018 our first turtle release in conjunction Hope For Wildlife. We had a total off 11 turtles to return to nature after some rehabilitation. Ever seen a truck full of Snappers?

We owe a big Thank You to Hope for Wildlife, they arranged not only for public media to be present but also their own film crew that does the Hope for Wildlife Television show. I am told it might be up to 2 years before the show actually airs as they have a lot of great material already filmed!
Clarence and I have some theories that we are trying to confirm so we are starting to shoot images of the underbelly of any turtles that we can. Just look at the expression this little guys face! This is one of 7 that we released outside of Windsor, Nova Scotia.

H7- Hope for Wildlife release #7 turtle was a real rebel he didn't want to head to the water initially.

With a second attempt H7 headed in the right direction and we just had to keep an eye on him for a bit to ensure he made it into the water.

It was amazing to watch these little bulldozers get through the heavy grasses at waters edge. They just stick their nose in a little hole, drop their front feet and push/drive forward with the hind legs!

After about 20 minutes of H7 getting in the water we spotted him making his way to the large pond that Clarence had selected for these seven snappers to call home.

It was nice that we had so many turtles to release at this one site. It provided us with time to observe early released turtles to occasionally check in and see if we were gone yet.

It is so rewarding to see them feeling at home in their new environment. I am not certain that this little fella didn't want to audition to be a permanent member of the cast.

We finished up our day with Al, he found a beautiful spot to release this last snapper in the Gays Lake watershed. A special thanks to Dan the landowner for allowing us to put this young lady into a piece of snapper heaven.

It is hard to express at just how happy we are with all the results of the day and the feelings of jubilation experienced by the members of Turtle Patrol.

Yours in turtling
Turbo

Thanks to Nova Scotia Power (20180501) Our first site enhancement project.

We were notified that Nova Scotia Power had dropped off two yards of gravel at one of our nesting sites that happen to be on their property. So Bernie, Clarence, myself, and Bizzy went in and did some shoveling and raking to enhance two areas for turtles to nest.

It was a nice cool morning, and getting it done at this time of year we avoid the bugs.

It only took us about an hour of effort to finish up. Clarence heard a couple of drumming grouse as he walked in.
I want to once again thank Stephanie and Jeremy from Nova Scotia Power for the generous support for our Nova Scotia "grizzlies"!

Yours in Turtling!