Quick follow up to the last post: On Sunday (July 12th) Scott and I tried another trip to catch map turtles (Graptemys geographica). Unfortunately some heavy rain the night before had washed a whole lot of silt into the river, making it impossible to see the bottom and thus impossible to properly hunt map turtles.

We did see an assortment of turtles in the Canal: one stinkpot (Sternotherus oderatus), one snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina), and a few smaller map turtles.

We did find another hatchling - maybe the same one.



I decided to take a photo of one of several test holes. These are holes that nesting female turtles dig but for whatever reason do not end up using for egg laying.



Last quick photo, here's a norther watersnake (Nerodia sipedon) we saw. The poor thing was swimming hard against the current and barely making any progress at all.


Post script: Eitan took a swing by the Delaware River recently and got some good photos of the map turtles. Here a close-up shot of one basking:

Here are a bunch basking on rocks - our targets in snorkeling: