Turtle Morning after Big Rain

2.35 inches of rain Wed/Thur this week. I walked the NE Tree Loop in the Woods at 10:30 on a beautiful Saturday morning. The Woods may be most alive now. Understory box elders have flushed out full new leaves, still fresh. The multi-flora rose is blooming white. Spiders are just beginning to weave webs. Only a few across any of the trails. My sentries were a couple of crows announcing my progress as I walked along. Nothing alarming, just a two syllable call. At Elm Bridge there was a school of maybe twenty to thirty 1.5 inch-long minnows/ guppies or similar. One yellow-white gold fish? schooled with the minnows. Someone must have introduced the fish.. maybe to eat mosquito larvae? In the upstream pool I watched through binoculars as something fairly large and submerged, disturbed the water over and over. Maybe a red-eared slider feeding? Never could spot it, but it moved fairly quickly and was fairly large (bull frog? turtle? water snake? Loch Oliver monster?).
I encountered three box turtles along the trail: one by the largest old (dead) walnut along the Tree Loop; one about 40 ft north of the leaning big Cottonwood with Carpenter's survey post; one on the east side of Island Crossing top of the bank (small/ young). There was also a red-eared slider basking on a floating log south side of the NW Pond.
The big broken hanging elm is re-greened by luxuriant growth of Parthenocissus, Virginia Creeper, up in the sunlight, sharing the crown with wild grape.
Twenty feet south of Fence Corner, along the trail there was a mystery vine.. large well-grown. Whitish bark, rounded leaves with a tip.
The ponds were well-filled: East Pond at 2.35 ft and NW Pond at 2.5 ft. Blooming flowers other than the rose - just white and yellow daisies. Did not see deer today. Good 'greens' for them everywhere.
   
 Several earlier days in the Woods with cool temps over the past two weeks. One midday entering via the NW Pond I heard an ambulance siren moving W along Hwy 9. It was answered by coyotes (maybe two or more) nearby top of hill above the East Pond. Leaving the Woods an hour later there was another ambulance and again the same answer from coyotes. Most days this fortnight, I see 3-5 white-tailed deer.
Began a new informal cross trail from Hackberry Alley over to south side of the Big Tree Grove. I like it. Just marked with 2-3 flags of blue tape. Great over-mature clump of white and brown agaric mushrooms there, looked like Coprinus almost. Week earlier I enjoyed finding fresh big oyster mushrooms and having a bite.