Which way to the beach?

Yesterday we had a very pleasant, sunny day, light breeze from the north, about 75F in the sunny sheltered areas. Birds were singing, treefrogs were calling, just one of those perfect spring days. In late afternoon I decided to clean the beach, took the rake and fork and headed down to get the bits of flotsam that had washed up on the sand. As I started from the one end, a watersnake moved in the cattails in the corner, and I saw that it had a dead perch in its mouth. Fortunately I had brought the little camera with me, and slowly crept up on it to get a few shots.

The snake was medium to large sized, the perch about 7 inches long. It doesn't seem to matter if a fish has been dead for a while, I've seen watersnakes scavanging some stinky old fish carcass that's been around for a while, which makes me think of them as a handy little cleanup crew. I had work to do, so couldn't hang around to see the snake finish this meal.

As I continued raking, I was about halfway across the beach and after one of the swipes with the rake I spotted a tiny turtle hatchling in the sand when I removed its covering. I put some wet sand in one of the toy beach buckets and placed it in there to keep it safe til I was finished, and after a couple minutes, discovered a second one. I had already scooped a couple piles of debris with the fork and dumped it on the hillside beside the beach, and worried that I may have scooped a hatchling along with it, so after placing this second turtle in the bucket I then spent 20 minutes picking the pile apart one handful at a time to see if there were any in there. I didn't find any. Raking then proceeded much more slowly. When I finished the raking job, I took my wee tiny turtles up the house to get some photos of them.

Once the turtles had warmed up, they became quite lively. The smaller of the two wouldn't stay on his back for a side-by-side shot with the other one for comparison of bottom markings, he would immediately flip himself upright As you can see from the pictures, these little guys are literally thumbnail size. After photographing them, I took them down to the shoreline in a sheltered area with plenty of cover for them to hide in. I put them right at the edge of the water, and they immediately took off. One headed out to sea, and the other swam around a bit, then dove down and burrowed into the plants and leaves on the bottom. Hopefully they've made the start of a long happy life. It's good to see that a nest was successful in producing at least 2 hatchlings, I suspect that there may have been more that headed into the lake before I found them. I'd like to think that this was one of the nests that I had protected from raccoons. Whenever I see a turtle laying her eggs around here, I make note of the spot, and come back later with a board or light flat rock. I lay this over the nest, and spray with a shot or two of ammonia, then remove the rock a week or two later when the fresh-dug nest has settled down.

Other notes from yesterday: Treefrogs were trilling here and there all day long, and then last night the big chorus was in full swing. There's still a bunch of peepers calling. A great horned owl was calling, I hooted back a couple of times and got it going. The lilacs and lily of the valley are just coming into bloom, I'll be watching for butterflies. There are about 5 bass on their nests that I've found, another job yesterday was roping off an area by the dock so that no one would wade in and trample the nest that a 10-inch bass has in the shallows. Over from my dock there's a bass about 14 inches long that has been hovering over his nest, I got a few dew worms to throw to him, he quickly gobbled them down. I've read that bass will not eat while nesting, but I've never found this to be true here. Our bass are little gluttons, and will gladly partake of any edible tidbit I throw to them. I'll have to gather some worms today and toss them to these guys, keep their strength up for driving off sunfish and perch. Although, I've noticed that with the Big Guy smaller fish keep their distance, I have yet to see a sunfish come within 5 feet of his nest, his sheer size keeps them away.

It's cloudy and windstill this morning, I should get the camera out. There are downy yellow violets in bloom, and the trilliums are turning pink. There's a couple of small shagbark hickory trees with the leaves coming out, still brownish red. One of my favourite plant observations in spring is watching the hickory buds open, and the bracts coming out and spreading. So many things to see this time of year, and so little time!