Turtle People

Yikes. Has it been that long since I posted? I guess it has!
When I planned the ID-a-day project, I failed to take the weather into account. It rained all last week, and since my camera is not waterproof I left it in the truck most of the time. Thus, no new ID pictures.
But I did [...]

Today, we got to see some results of our labor. Some gopher tortoises were brought up from another base, down in Melbourne, and we had to find empty burrows to move them to at Camp Blanding.

I got to work on a prescribed burn Thursday, which was immensely fun and entertaining, but unfortunately that was the day I forgot my camera. So I have no photos of the 30-foot tower of flame I caused in the middle of the woods. Too bad, because it was awesome.

Last week, we were just about done with the original set of transects we were supposed to get done this summer. And the few that were left, we couldn’t get to because they were within range of a 50-calibur machine gun they were firing. So we began surveying a new part of Camp Blanding: East [...]

All this week’s photos were taken while actually working. I’m as shocked as you are.

I saw a bunch of tortoises last week, mostly along the main paved road on South Post. Apparently the roadbank is ideal tortoise habitat. Except, y’know, for the vehicles occasionally speeding past.

Lucky for me, we’re not looking for the tortoises themselves. [...]

It’s been raining all day — the kind of rain you rarely see in Florida, especially in summer: just straight-down cold gray rain with no lightning or heavy wind. Very good for the water table, but not so much fun to work in. I’ve been soaking wet all day.
Eventually the GPS signal petered out on [...]

This was supposed to be last weekend’s photo post, but I was off frolicking in the Keys. So these photos are from week before last, when we found an abundance of the kind of creatures that you’d normally see in Indiana Jones movies.

This isn’t the sharpest photo ever, but here’s a spinybacked orb-weaver to start [...]