Ending November. November 13th and Thanksgiving.

 Our year in the field is essentially over. We're already making plans for next year, hoping to hit a few spots we hadn't been able to this year. Still, when the weather isn't horrible, we like to try to stretch our legs. In that spirit, we walked around our favorite pond on Saturday, November 13th. It was too cool and cloudy to have much of a chance, but it's better than sitting on the couch.

Bless their little red backs, there were still plenty of Redbacks present. The first guy is wearing a little leaf hat or toupée.

Sexy and slender.

This little chocolate guy has a tail regenerating. The tip looks like a cat's claw.

A little guy on the left and a teeny guy on the right who'd have rested comfortably on a dime.

Andrea might have seen a turtle plop in at one point but she's not sure.  We did get one surprise, right around Ringneck Hill. This Garter tail was seen slowly pulling in, going into a hole.

I went to lift the top rock to see if we could find the entry hole and... oops! It was all one rock and she was sitting under it!

Obviously, she'd come up to grab a few rays before retreating to her sleep spot. Ringneck Hill is obviously home to many snakes of different species.

That was a nice surprise. It might well be our last snake of 2021. Still, there is plenty to enjoy outside. We sat for a bit, having this as our view.

One more beautiful Redback.

Since it was cool, I'd hoped that a stream that has Two-lines and lots of mosquitoes would be missing the latter. Sure enough, no 'skeeters bothered me, but I was also unable to stir up a Two-line! I did, however, disturb a Pickerel Frog who had turned in for the year.

I apologized and tucked him back in. See you next year! 

He's likely the last frog we'll see until the Spring.

We're signed up for Turtle Duty again this year. We didn't get called much last year... like, only once, so we were surprised to get a call to walk the big beach on Thanksgiving Day. But we accepted and hit the beach at 3:15 PM, knowing full well we' be in the dark by the time we reached the Point.

I had debated whether or not to bring my camera but we had an hour and a half of daylight and I'd hoped to see some birds and seals before the sun set. I was rewarded with #79 on the year, some Sanderlings.

We didn't expect to see many (or any, really) turtles because it was very nice out for a change. Very little wind and it was in the 50s. Less than a mile in, however, we saw a couple walking towards us and it looked pretty obvious that they had one. They did, a small Kemp's... the gent carrying it was no nonsense and was hurrying with it to the parking lot where a Sanctuary person was waiting. Luckily for the lil' turtle, these folks knew exactly what to do. We thanked them profusely!!

In the waning light, we saw a lot of this...

And there would be a lot more even after we couldn't see it anymore. Roughly 4 miles out and 4 miles back.

I did get a shot of a curious Gray Seal looking in at us.

Neither of us had ever seen the sun set over the ocean before. We got a gorgeous show.

A seal was bobbing up out there, making me look like a real photographer. I was very glad to have brought the camera.

Just before we had to resort to our headlamps and flashlights, we found a turtle. It was a Kemp's-Ridley and it was obviously dead. It had some chips on the edge of the carapace and some on the plastron below. He didn't smell very fresh. Though he was at the current high-tide wrack line, he'd obviously been dead for quite a while. He either died out in the water (clipped by a boat?) or had come in and been pulled back out again. At any rate, we called him in and prepared him to pick up on our way back.

As expected, it was completely dark by the time we hit the Point. We were greeted by an adorable sight there. Instead of scaring off a flock of Eiders (our usual night-time Point practice), there was a cute little seal face in our lights. He looked at us, then at the water. Back to us, back to the water. Us. Water. He slowly decided to slowly flop his way into the drink. I couldn't for the life of me get a shot in the dark but it was a great treasure to watch this youngster flop along.

Sorry lil guy, but we had to check the wrack.

This is the track he left...

From there it was just walk back the 4(ish) miles along the receding tide edge to see if anyone was left washed up. Our lack of practice was catching up with us with a couple of miles yet to go, but we persevered. It kicked our asses, but we made it and got the deceased turtle to the Sanctuary. He will be necropsied in February and we can learn from peeking inside. Poor fella.

The little turtle that we'd seen the couple carrying out when we got there was alive and headed to the rehab aquarium!! I'm glad to end this post on a positive note!