These little guys are awesome...

No comments yet? These things are cool...

Awesome post Brian. Great pictures.

I have yet to see a pond turtle. please don't offer me any spots, cause then I'll never go there, and may have figured out to go there on my own. I have very little experience with turtles, but have figured out from my X-country trip, and a few introduced RES spots that turtle pics can be VERY Hard to get... I'm impressed Brian... jim

Mike: Screw you, Hippy...


Jim: They are really hard to get unless you get close enough...like bridges, blinds, behind bushes, or a telephoto lens (of which, I do not have a very good one, hence the few "good" pics...)

I could guess a spot where they should be Jim...or should I? lol ...no offense Owen still trying to prove my point.
Nick

I like your avatar. I think this is my best pulchra pic:


From 1984

from there I went downhill:

There's just something WRONG with this pic, but I can't put my finger on it...

yes they are ninja cool Hubbs
Nick

Yeah, I really like the little ones...

Brian, I love those little guys and would love to see one in person. Can I go next time?

TC

Thanks, your first one is super clean! Speechless for your second one lol
This one is still my favorite from '06:

Terry: maybe...but we will look for new spots...

herper79: Very nice Coastal...

ok you win, yours in smaller lol. I thought the one I saw was swimming duck poo poo it was so small.

Small is good...it means they're still breeding and having babies...

Great shots Mr. Hubbs! I can never get close enough for a decent shot.

Thus far, the only thing I've been able to produce are turtle heads

OK!!

CAN YOU SAY BORING!?? LOL jk

Fundad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJlQcjLo ... ata_player

So Hubbs, did you have any luck when you were in the Chico area?

Not for turtles...but I saw a fence lizard. However, after leaving I saw some turtles in the city to the south.

As found in Santa Barbara County:








Quite surprised the little guy got up there. This was a small stream in the middle of nowhere too - one of my all-time favorite turtle finds.

Great stuff; nice to see a CA turtle post now and then!

JimM

I missed this post. I love pond turtles.

My 2011's:



sharing a log


trust me- there's one pond turtle tucked in there on the left


pond turtle my arse... I'm a creek turtle

Interesting point - I see lots of "creek turtles" in SoCal, but only one pond turtle in an actual pond.

On the other hand, all of the (relatively few) pond turtles I've seen in NorCal have been in ponds.

Now that I think about it, that's probably just because SoCal pretty much doesn't have ponds.

They use both in both places, but most of the time you don't see 'em before they see you...an den' dey be gone...

In my neck of the woods, the Pond Turtles have been disappearing from the ponds and reservoirs

It appears that the invasives(bass, RES, Bullfrogs) have taken a great toll on the Pond Turtles
(haven't seen a juvie in decades)

I fear that the only viable/sustainable refuge left for them are our shallower creeks...just my thoughts

Am I correct in my assessment? Thoughts?

Derek,
I think you are correct, but I would also add habitat destruction to the list, and there are probably a few other factors as well. Growing up in Fresno in the late 70s I use to see them all the time in the lower Sierra-Nevadas and I'm sure there are still some around, but the few times I've been back over there I haven't seen any.
And Brian, yes this is a cool post. They are difficult to get photos of.

Good Bushmen to get these I love Pond Turtles too

In the park lakes here - feral red eared sliders like the one in Owens pic - start to take on a dark , almost black coloration after being out for years . The ones that have this darker character are always very large .

yes . I did an informal sightings count with a friend one summer - all RES , some painteds - even a Reeves Turtle - but none of our own Pond Turtles

It's really a shame that such a great herp is disappearing.

They have had my interest a long time, since I studied turtles in Michigan. We had four species on our property in Northern MI, the snapper, painted, Blanding's, and wood turtle. Even though I've never seen a CA pond turtle, they seem most like the wood turtles to me. We had four ponds and a stream. The snapper, painted, and Blandings stayed mostly to the ponds, but the wood turtles stayed mostly to the streams. They would hibernate at the bottom of the streams and come up on land to forage for berries, mushrooms, and such in summer. The pond turtle may be more adapted to surviving in streams than the others in CA.

I'd love to see some in the wild and get a better perception of their natural history...

Terry

Very cool, Brian. I like the little one, also like the sequence of shots Jonathan posted.

Thanks for sharing!

Nice pics Brian... I like that first one. I haven't seen a baby Western in the wild since 1989... ish.

Here's a new pic from this year...


Western Pond Turtles...doin what turtles do... by tricolorbrian, on Flickr

Brian, your second photo looks very similar to the spot I told you about in Orange County in the early sixties. Nice photos too.

Thanks. No, not your spot...but tules all look alike...

Are there Pond turtles in the San Bernardino, San Jacinto, and/or Laguna Mountains?

Uhhh... You had a Woody when you took it? I'm working on putting together a survey, for WPT's in the Mojave Narrows wetlands. If it happens, I hope you'll come show us how its done (finding turtles) Last time I tried, I ended up neck-deep in beaver ponds... jim

You never need to get wet to see pond turtles. All you need are good binoculars, cryptic behavior skills (like hiding from the basking turtles), and a good telephoto lens...

Yeah...went in after a bullfrog, tried crossing to the other side... next thing i know... neck deep. The only legless lizard ever found in the Victor Valley was also found in the Cottonwoods near there.
RES can be found on the VVC campus lakes, and in Spring Valley Lakes golf course ponds (Tiger Salamanders also rumored there) several miles downstream, so I want to see if RES have made it to the Narrows, where WPT used to occur. jim

Coastal mendo county has "stream turtles" in surprisingly cool foggy situations, in some deeply timber-shaded creeks. Places you would expect (and find) Ascaphus, dicamps, rhyacos, etc. Blows your mind if you have a mental habitat image of hot interior ponds with tules and such.

My second wildlife job (summer 1992) was surveying for these guys on the Modoc National Forest, near Tulelake. The site was a disgusting cow-blasted waterbody named Willow Creek (they fenced it on threat of an EPA water-quality violation; hopefully it looks a lot better now...). I had to use a spotting scope mounted on a rifle stock to get a look at the shy sneaky buggers. I've loved them since.

Cheers,
Jimi