A Super Volunteer day. (20180621) A Special thank you to Gracenote a division of Neilsen

Earlier this year the Turtle Patrol was contacted by Gracenote to see if we would like some volunteer effort. We were happy to have some strong backs and willing hands. So we made arrangements for them to come out on Neilsen's Global Impact day on June 21st. Clarence handled the arrangements and we ended up receiving 10 volunteers. We decided that we would put them to work doing habitat enhancement at our educational site. Clarence headed down early and to see if we were going to have any live turtles to show our guests and was ready to go at 9:30 when everyone arrived. Upon arrival at our primary educational site we were greeted by Grace. She was sniffing around looking for the "right" place to lay her eggs.

Clarence and I split our crew into two groups, and I took my crew to the second pond and we got to work removing destructive vegetation from the nesting area.

There are specific areas where vegetation is of particular concern as the roots will grow right into the eggs laid by the Snappers and make the eggs unviable. Here is a look at how much the guys in the crew were able to clear up.

I was doing trial trimming to ensure the walk into this site was clear and trimmed so patroller's opportunity to encounter ticks were minimized.
Clarence's crew did a similar stellar job at first pond and the place looks great!
Next it was back to my place for lunch and nice cold water that was supplied by AA Munro Insurance. During lunch Clarence and I answered many questions regarding Snapping turtles andwe hope the Gracenote folks got something out of the session.
We then headed out to our second large patrolling area that contains our greatest population of known nesting females. Here is a quick shot of most of the Gracenote crew, some with their AA Munro water bottles ready for their next stroll and education opportunity.

While we spotted no Snappers we were treated to a viewing of a Painted Turtle basking in the sun- what little was available,

So, once again a special thanks to Gracenote volunteers: Craig Sampson, Aaron Landry, Charles Zwicker, Ian Sutherland, Cliff Wheadon, Tom Bilodeau, Scott Rose, Greg Taves, and Ye Liang. We hope you had a great day and learned a little about our Nova Scotia Snappers. I would also be remiss if I didn't thank Alison Conrad from Deloitte, and Jenn Stotland from Halifax Earth, who also came out on the 21st and provided assistance.
As a followup, here is a shot of Grace just before she laid her eggs the very next day.

She is a beauty!
Take some time and put a little wild in your life today!
Turbo

Nest Protector construction (20180616) Thanks to AA Munro and Hefler Forest Products.

Well with the nesting season already upon us we finally managed to scrape together enough donations to begin building some "nest protectors" for this and future years Snapping turtles. With lumber trim ends provided by Hefler Forest products, screws and staples provided by my sister, and top-side screening provided by AA Munro we set to work.

I would also like to thank the ladies of AA Munro and friends who provided the labour. Here are just two of the three helpers that the Turtle Patrol had on this beautiful day.

In all we managed to bang together 20 of these boxes for use by the Turtle Patrol. Having a air-assisted stapler helped fabulously.

So now all that is left is to find some nests to protect.
Thanks again to the folks from AA Munro for their generous donation of time and energy, not to mention the most expensive component of a protector, the top-side screen.
A "shout out" also goes again to the folks at Hefler Forest Products for the generous donation of trim ends. Last and definitely not least a huge Thank You to my sister and fellow contructor, Angie!

This effort represents 18 hours of volunteer effort and about the equivalent of $300 in materials.
Thanks for taking the time to read and view!

Turbo

Our biggest rehabilitation effort to date (20180606) A HUGE thank you to Hefler Forest Products!

Well folks sometimes you just get blown away, that was the case this week as we worked on our largest effort of the year so far.  We had popped in and mentioned to the folks at Hefler that we would like to come in and do some rehabilitation for some nesting Snappers. Dana greeted us warmly and told us we had the go ahead, and mentioned that she would let us know when they had some gravel for us.  On June 4th, Dana let us know that there was gravel available for us to use. What a speedy response. We Headed over on the 5th and started work. The following shots are kind of what we started with. This first shot provides a peek at the gravel pile we had to work with and some of the area we would be working on.

We had material in front of these barriers which we wanted to move behind, in order to encourage our Snapper ladies to lay in a safer environment. 

This far end view shows us our target for a nesting pad. It also illustrates the area by the recently replaced telephone pole that had stirred things up and brought a lot of large aggregate to the surface of area. In the background you can see the pile of gravel. 

Some of the barriers had quite a bit of material that we wanted to move behind. 

So we got started raking and shoveling, shoveling and raking. When it came time to build the pad front end Loader man Terry moved some of our topping to be reused after we installed our gravel bed. 

Talk about efficiency over having to shovel! We were ecstatic that we didn't have to Pick and Shovel all that material. 

After several hours we are happy to report we got the job done! While we didn't use all of the gravel the pile was considerably smaller when we were done. 

The area behind the barriers were all raked up and we ended up with about 4 inches of fresh material added to what was already there.

The fronts of the barriers have all been cleaned up nicely. 

This final shot tells the story of not only the new pad, but also the work that was done by the telephone pole. We were able to create a second pad about 8 feet in diameter in that area that should provide a nesting sight for two or more females. The pad in the fore ground was elevated by about 4-6 inches which should be a wonderful spot for the ladies to get their business done. 

So a BIG shout out to the kind and caring folks at Hefler Forest Products for providing such a wonderful nesting area for the Snappers in the area. What a classy organization. 

Yours in turtling

Turbo

The Snapping Turtle Breeding Season has Commenced!

The Turtle Patrol has been busy busy busy this spring getting ready for the breeding season. In addition to getting lots of organizational stuff done, meeting with people and passing out business cards like crazy, we have been doing a ton of field work. Already this spring the Turtle Patrol has visited 64 turtle locations. Our main field focus has been preparing these sites for laying females which involved evaluations, cleanups and habitat enhancement.

We have another 10 sites slotted for enhancement this week in the Halifax metro area and we plan to work fast as to the south and west of HRM the Snapping Turtles are already laying.

Our first report came yesterday of a laying female in Kentville at Miners Marsh and this beautiful photo was taken there by Sally Rose. Today a video of a second laying female was captured by Joelle Bezanson at Kejimkujik National Park.

We are now entering our next phase where our main focus will be on patrolling for laying females. :) There are a ton of sites that need to be covered so please send me a message and let me know any days any of you are available to do a patrol and we can easily find sites for you to do. 

Yours in turtling,

Clarence

:)