Notes on Urban Ecology: A new site tomorrow

A Flame Skimmer (Libellula saturata), a dragonfly sitting on a water plant at the Vineyard Drainage.

A bit about last week

I am healthy again, so tomorrow work starts at a new site, a drainage channel near a vineyard, so I am calling it the Vineyard Drainage. It is good to be going out again.

I did mention why I spent last week going through samples and photographing them instead of working in the field. On the last day of fieldwork, I was pulling up a sample and got a face full mud, water, and plant debris. Of course, I was talking and working so I got a mouthful of debris resulting in dysentery. Getting sick was a blessing in disguise.

This year I am choosing to sample the ecosystems for available food resources at the same time I am trapping turtles. Because I choose to do this, I can see the organisms in situ without the effects of mastication and digestion by turtles. Therefore, when I look at the stomach contents, I am able to identify organisms in stomach content samples more easily. The following photographs are an example of this. There are cranial features that make them very recognizable. In a way I am doing forensics.

This is an example of something I found in a stomach content sample. It would be barely recognizable if I did not know what one looks like in nature.

These are naiads from a damselfly from the family Aeshnidae from the order Odonata that includes dragonflies and damselflies. Naiads go through a series of moults called instars as organism grows and needs a lager exoskeleton. The top naiad is ready to emerge and leave behind the exoskeleton, an exuvia. (Please revisit my previous pictures I posted on the subject).

I also returned a western pond turtle to its home after cleaning it up and removing an old radio transmitter. I used my trusty bicycle to do it.