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RE: Turtling in northern Florida

Bill Love — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:32:12 GMT

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

I own an old Nikonos III, but was never happy with the resulting pics from 18-ish years ago when I used it once in the Florida Keys. That probably swayed me away from underwater photography permanently, which is unfortunate, but fact. I'll see if either of my companions' underwater shots came out because they both were using underwater models that same day. Guess I'll remain a landlubber on that angle of shooting herps.

RE: Turtling in northern Florida

Auballagh — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 07:35:11 GMT

As always - Really beautiful photography work, Bill.

Warm sunny days, very clear water and a solid, hard creek bottom to wade around in, (Mud or silt bottoms make everything a lot more difficult), can't get much better conditions than that! With all that snorkeling around, would love to see some photos of underwater herp stuff depicting activities like this. Any chance you're thinking of messing around in the future with water proof housings, or a Nikonos camera possibly, to try some capturing some underwater scenes?

RE: Turtling in northern Florida

Moyer78 — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:40:05 GMT

Nice pics

RE: Turtling in northern Florida

herpdude86 — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:01:24 GMT

Wow, I would love to snorkel there! Nice finds and pics!

RE: Turtling in northern Florida

Turtle Boy — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:48:22 GMT

nice pics it's amazing how steep those turtles can climb!

RE: Turtling in northern Florida

oneWorld — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:44:45 GMT

Some of those turtles up in the trees...wow...

RE: Turtling in northern Florida

toadygirl — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:57:13 GMT

Looks like a fun trip. The Loggerhead picture is hilarious, he looks shocked to have his picture taken.

RE: Turtling in northern Florida

oneWorld — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:34:13 GMT

Nice pics! As usual... Good job.

RE: Turtling in northern Florida

MeganRM — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:49:17 GMT

Sounded like you had fun.Nice pictures.

Turtling in northern Florida

Bill Love — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:41:23 GMT

I've been away the last 5 days helping a researcher friend, Chris Lechowicz (and 17-year-old protege helper Alan Rivero) on a project studying map turtles (genus Graptemys) in a little-studied river system in the Florida panhandle. Chris has to collect, measure, and mark as many map turtles each visit, usually twice per year, as he can catch. This time, we also squeezed in a 1-day visit to a second river up there too. Turtles were out in moderate abundance, including some 2008 hatchlings. Here are some of the highlights.....

Alan (left) and Chris (background) snorkeling in a clear spring-fed creek. We found 2 herp species here under water.

Alan spotted this brown water snake (Nerodia taxispilota) crawling on the bottom while looking for turtles. It's probably a sub-adult at about 2 feet in length. Normally we find these basking on cypress knees and roots along shore. Further below is a close-up of the snake the way we usually see them.

Loggerhead musk turtles (Sternotherus minor minor) are by far the most numerous herp residents in the creek. This is a typically pugnacious juvenile posed on a cypress knee.

You have to watch out handling them because they're constantly stretching their necks out to try and bite while being held.

Here are some more loggerhead musks that were basking along the Chipola River. It was amazing how steep of branches they could climb up.

Barbour's map turtles (Graptemys barbouri) were very wary on the Chipola. It wasn't uncommon for them to dive off their basking logs when we were still hundreds of feet away in our motorboat.

There are 'other' turtles mixed here basking - probably yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta) and cooters (Pseudemys concinna) besides the adult female Barbour's map to the right off by herself.

I had hoped to find an alligator snapper like last time I visited this river two years ago, but no such luck this time.