Juniata ESS Research Tech Summer 2022

 I don't have a lot to say for this past week. I've processed upwards of 100 turtles just myself in about 2 weeks and have been eaten alive by mosquitos. We've been working on more woodrat bait traps and put out our second round at 1000 steps. I'm glad we didn't have to go the whole way up, that hike kicked my butt. Next week we're wrapping up turtles and we'll be camping Wednesday through Friday to do some pollinator work. I am very excited for this! I've taken a lot of photos, and these are some of my favorites. Monday night at the Field Station Nesting snapping turtle Juvenile wood turtle (left) and adult painted turtle (right) Baby snapping turtle View from roughly step 250

  I've had a fantastic week working with the ESS department. We've worked with nothing but turtles all week - well, we did go see Sparks Farm for a project in a few weeks and put out some woodrat camera traps. But other than that, all turtles last week and for the next week and a half. It's nesting season, and so we have been very busy going to sites and looking for turtles so we can put cages over the nests. This helps us keep track of who the mother is and protect the nests from predators, mostly raccoons. OH! And we also had our first night up at the Field Station where summer residents can go hang out at the lake. It was a ton of fun. There were games, food, and kayaking. It's nice having something to to this summer that isn't work and where we can go and just chill for a few hours. I'm excited for the next ones.

     Okay, so I was wrong about turtles last week, but we are working with them this week! Last week was short because of the holiday weekend, but we were just as busy anyway. As we lightly wrapped up our work with Dr. Merovich and the crayfish we've been collecting, we got to get together with Dr. Ramakrishnan and began talking about our work with her. This will include some work with Alleghany Woodrats and pollinator surveys, which we'll start working on on Thursday. But until then, it's turtle time with Dr. Nagle! We'll be watching closely over a few sites for nesting turtles to mark and keeping an eye on the nests themselves. I love turtles, so I'm excited to be working with them for the next few weeks. Here are some pictures of our adventures from last week! We found this box turtle in the road (he was safely moved to the other side afterwards). These are the traps we used to catch Virile Crayfish in Raystown lake. We found a snake in the road, but I stayed in