Oko Yamni

Monday, Mar 14 to Sunday, Mar 20, 2011: high 69, low 28

The low temperature during this week was the highest in twenty weeks. And Monday afternoon, in the deepest of the springs, the turtles apparently were shrugging off the effects of their hibernations. Two large snappers (one is in the picture above, just under the water surface beside the partially submerged tree limb, whereas the other is poking its head above the surface in the picture below) moved lethargically, seemingly suspended in the water along the eastern edge of the pool, where the sunlit water temperature must have been warmer since the western half was still covered with ice.

The turtles’ shells were caked with debris, and looked as though they were ancient. The next afternoon the turtles immediately darted for cover in the mossy bottom as i approached. Interestingly, over the course of the next couple days i found over half a dozen carapaces of box or painted turtles near the springs. The one in the foreground of the picture below is broken, but all but one of the rest were intact hollow shells. Perhaps their owners were washed out of their hibernation haunts by the torrent of runoff water that rushed down the draw the past month or two and inundated the springs?