Sunday, June 26, 2011



The first week of the 2011 Summer Camp season is now history. I managed to rip the crotch out of a pair of pants (while catching an Alligator Lizard) and kill my digital camera (by jumping into the reservoir after a Garter Snake without removing the camera case from my shoulder). I suppose I should be more careful or I'll actually be losing money rather than earning it. I had a nice group of kids for the week, although there were 23 of them, making it a larger than normal group. The groups will be larger all summer though, because we now have 162 kids a week rather than the 150 we've had in previous years. The extra kids means that I can only bring my own kids for one week each though, which is a shame. That said, I'm grateful for all of the free summer camp they've gotten in previous years. Alex gets to go multiple times, but he's old enough to volunteer now, which is exactly what he is doing. He volunteered down at the ropes course last week, and will be helping out with the little kids the week after this coming one.

This summer, I'm going to do my best to keep track of animals I've spotted, partially so I can remember when specific animals appear during the summer, and partially for fun. For instance, this is the time of year when it's easiest to find Kingsnakes. I've found 3 in the last week - one up at Almaden Quicksilver, one (a beautiful Mountain Kingsnake)in the garden at work during summer camp set-up week, and one on the driveway at camp on Thursday evening.

Here's what I saw this week:

Birds: Junco, Stellar's Jay, Raven, Crow, Swallow, Robin, Coot, Killdeer, Black Crowned Night Heron, and Quail, not to mention the countless little brown birds that I can't identify. The Killdeer had three eggs, and its efforts to lead us away from them clued me in to watch for them, which probably saved the eggs from being stepped on. The Black Crowned Night Heron was a bit of a surprise, but all of the others I more or less expect to see every week.

Mammals: Rabbit (in the garden), Mouse (it ran up my arm when I tried to remove it from the recreation equipment bin), Vole, Deer, Bats, Squirrel, Raccoon. No real surprises here - these are the mammals we see almost every week.

Fish: None this week.

Amphibians: Arboreal Salamander, Slender Salamander, Pacific Tree Frog, Bullfrog, Western Toad, and California Newt (larval stage). It's a bit unusual to see Arboreal Salamanders during the summer, but other than that, I saw what I expected to see.

Reptiles: Western Fence Lizard, Southern Alligator Lizard, Western Skink, Santa Cruz Aquatic Garter Snake (7 of them), Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (2 of them), California Kingsnake (large one in the driveway), California Mountain Kingsnake (actually last week in the garden), Red-Eared Slider, and Common Snapping Turtle. One of the Western Skinks was with a clutch of eggs, which was pretty cool. The big surprise was the Snapping Turtle, and I'll relate that story below.

Invertebrates of note: Golden Buprestid Beetle, Jerusalem Cricket, Millipede (3 different kinds), Calisoga Spider, Silvestri's Scorpion, Glow Worms (13 of them!), California Sister Butterfly, Swallowtail Butterfly. I've never seen this many Glow Worms on one hike, so that was the most unusual invertebrate moment of the week. The Golden Buprestid was great to come across too - it landed on a kid, which seems to be the way they usually appear.

As for the Snapping Turtle, I was in the pond at my favorite turtle spot, expecting to find some Red-Eared Sliders. A Slider ducked under water in front of me, so I pushed on towards the shore, noting what looked like a gray boulder jutting out of the water near the reeds that hug the shoreline. As I got closer, I saw that the "boulder" actually had a turtle shell pattern on it, but it was bigger than any Slider I'd ever seen. Being me, I gripped it by the sides and hauled it out of the water. The moment the head and front legs of the turtle cleared the surface of the pond, I knew I was holding a Snapping Turtle. The head snaked around towards me, with the mouth gaping open in turtle outrage. I shifted my hands back a bit and, pinning my pond net between my side and upper arm, pushed the turtle through the water towards the other side of the pond. I'm not sure how I climbed out of the pond with the turtle in my hands, but I managed to do this without losing the turtle or any of my fingers. The kids were all pretty amazed by the find and followed me as I sloshed towards the wheelbarrow we'd brought down to collect duckweed in. I plopped the turtle down on top of the duckweed we'd already collected and made sure the kids knew enough to stand back. Once back up at camp, I asked our receptionist, Jacque, to get me some numbers of animal rescue organizations. I already knew that we didn't have the resources to take care of such a large turtle, and I sure wasn't going to put it back in the pond (a couple of kids had already accusingly said, "I thought you said there was nothing dangerous in there!). Jacque found a number for a local turtle and tortoise club and called them, arranging for a guy to come and pick up the turtle. They somehow had the resources/connections to arrange for the turtle to be flown back to its native habitat, so this particular story has a happy ending. The turtle stayed the night at camp, submerged in a plastic tub partially filled with water and duckweed. It got picked up while I was out hiking the next morning. This is officially the biggest reptile I've ever caught.

Jacque had an exciting animal week too, spotting 3(!) Mountain Lions in her driveway earlier in the week. It was a mom and two cubs. She said the mom was huge, stretching nearly from one side of her driveway to the other. She lives right up the hill too. I still haven't seen a Mountain Lion in the wild.

Apparently, the turtle is going to end up in East Texas. Willow, along with her mom and siblings, is in Texas right now too. Perhaps both planes were in the air at the same time. I think my ex-Father-in-law has passed away, or is about to. This leaves Willow with only her paternal grandpa and her maternal grandma left. Poor girl. I'll know more when she gets back.

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