Turtles and Bees

Marvelous April 21 Sunday afternoon walk in from the NE Gate 3 pm warm mid 70's sunny. The Woods have been filled and flooded for several days from good 2.5" rain Wednesday April 17.

Walking west of the jct of Hackberry Alley and NW Trans OWP (green) trail I had been thinking sadly how long it had been that I'd not seen turtles.. bingo! .. there on the south side of the trail was a muddy looking 3-toed box turtle. First of the year.. and first I'd seen since before last summer's killing heat. I watched for a while and then walked westward to the NW pond. Approaching the pond I saw to my great excitement and delight the big old snapper turtle hauled out and basking in the sun on a floating log. First time to see it in a year or more? It was almost as though the heavy rain had sent a signal to life in the Woods that it was OK to come back out.

The NW pond was full with 2.48 '. the East Pond 2.95'; and the Wash was at 21". The flow out of Woods was lazy & slow at the dam.

Crossing the dune trail, the Opuntia prickly pear that had been sadly collapsed and prostrate had imbibed a full load of water and all of its phylloclades were erect.

Rounding the NW Pond and cattail marsh on the west I heard suddenly a loud hum of bees and looked up to see a swarm of a few hundred hovering by a small cavity 25 feet up in a green ash, 15 feet west of the WT#5 post. I watched for five minutes trying to see if they were moving in and adopting the tree as their home. But as I watched, the swarm more or less suddenly moved south a few feet and dispersed into the leafy canopy of a flowering elm and then dissipated. Tom S. asked if maybe a colony was throwing off a new swarm. I'll have to check to see if bees remain in the ash a week from now.

At Island Crossing I was amazed to see a dozen or so small fish in the pool immediately upstream. I'd be surprised if the city was putting out new Gambusia.. All I could think was that these may have washed down in fast flowing flood water from the permanent pool north of the big culvert. In a small pocket pool at the crossing there were five gyrinid whirlygigs zooming around. Very glad to see. The Woods are just on the bring of producing thousands of mosquitoes from the shallow flooded woods. There were already small clouds of them by the NW pond at jct of W trail and NW trail.. although none bit me.

Mating tipulid cranefly adults are still relatively abundant around soggy leaf litter near remaining pools.

A pair of mallards were swimming in the west Woods by the SW corner of the cattails.

The SW quarter of the Woods was filled with foraging robins by the pools of standing water.

4-5 crows were flying overhead and seemed to be enjoying carrying on a conversation about everything there was to see.

A (nesting?) pair of hawks were soaring and flying around the big cottonwood tree number 277 east of Barney's Jct.

On the soggy earth below the beaver dam a new adult giant swallowtail  Papilio cresphontes was basking and may have been preparing for a first flight.. or warming its flight muscles to take off.

Elaeagnus flowering still outside NE gate. Viburnum was just getting ready to start blooming over the trail east of the NW Pond. Spring is 2-3 weeks later this year compared to 2012. Sapindus is late, still not quite ready to put out leaves; Morus also late; Celtis late; Bumelia nice new leaves fully out.

Beautiful fine day.