Warm and Murky — 3 May 2001Air 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. Visibility in the rip dropped to nearly opaque and seemed more like August than May. 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. I stood within a foot of a mature female and still couldn’t find her. 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.
We netted four terrapins: two males and two females, one of each were recaptures. One of the finest photographers/videographers in the Land of Ooze, Matt Suess of the Cape Cod Times (see http://www.mattsuess.com for Matt Suess Photography), joined the afternoon roundup to document our research and conservancy program. One perceptive comment: “Who said turtles where SLOW?!”
An 11 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. Smallish for his 9 years of age, while he has grown linearly about .15 centimeters all around in the last 21 months, he dropped from 226 grams to 210 grams in weight. The other male, only a 7-year-old, had already surpassed #802 with 12.5 centimeters length and 278 grams. The new female was over 13 years old, stretched to nearly 19 centimeters, and hit the scales at 1242 grams. But the final capture of the day proved the most interesting: Terrapin 365. She was first observed nesting on Lieutenant Island in 1996. Last year, I received a call at midnight from a vacationer on the island who had spotted a terrapin crossing the main road. Yep, it was 365 on an aborted nesting run at flood tide on Bastille Day’s full moon. Four days later, she made another nesting run, this time successful. She dug Nest 107 on a low dune at the edge of the marsh, depositing 9 perfect and viable eggs. After she finished laying, her weight dropped to 982 grams. This afternoon, #365 was 146 grams heavier. And a comparison of her carapace from last July to today shows how well she cleaned up the algae load from last summer.
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 — or in his case, for the tide to rise to him. Who said turtles were DUMB?!
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