Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Beatrice Chronicles - Part 4: The Search Resumes

So I'm not so up-to-date on postings right now. Here's a brief update.
  1. It has rained more in the first two months of this field season than it did probably the whole first 3 seasons all together
  2. The burn season was pretty short and smoky (due to the rain mentioned previously)
  3. Despite the short/slow burn season and the abundance of rain we managed to have a fire get loose from us (and nobody noticed until it was WAY past stopping)
  4. Geese remember people (more to come on this later)
So in the past two months I have boss-man repeatedly to let me check on Beatrice. The answer usually had something to do with not being convenient that day, plans to go north instead of south, other excuses I can't even remember... but basically "no."
I was able to check her twice so far, once in early April when it was still cold. She had still been in her wintering spot, but it was no surprise due to the weather at the time.
The first week of May I was able to check on her again. She was basically in the same location, but had moved within the wetland complex. Then there was no checking for 3 weeks.

Finally this past Friday boss-man told me to take the equipment to go check on her location. I had secretly been thinking, "Aww crumb. She's not going to be there and she'll be lost again forever. I don't want to go."

So I headed out there with P90X and some volunteer kids. Everyone was pre-warned that the likelihood of getting a signal was minimal due to the transient nature of this particular turtle. When we got to the location there was no signal to be heard. She indeed has eluded me again.

Today I was sent to find her, pretty much in the same way as last year. Take the tracking equipment and some maps and try to find her signal. Six and a half hours of turtle searching and all I got was a sore tushy from driving around in the truck all day.

So basically, I'll go out as often as I'm allowed, but I'm mostly hoping that someone happens to find her and they give us a call.