Meet Raymond!
Meet Raymond! He is an adult Blanding’s turtle that our field team found mating with Clementine. You may remember Clementine from one of our previous posts. She is an adult Blanding’s turtle from one of Adopt-A-Pond’s early studies and was found again last summer. Since then, we have been tracking her to learn more about adult Blanding’s turtle behaviour and habitat.
Raymond (top) and Clementine (bottom)
Raymond was originally found in a backyard pond near Highland Creek in 2007. He was released into a nearby suitable habitat and evaded being tracked. From the release site, he may have made his way down to Lake Ontario and up into the Rouge National Urban Park. It would have been a journey and we were ecstatic to see he found Clementine!
Raymond (left) and Clementine (right)
Our field team will be tracking Raymond in addition to Clementine and are looking forward to learning more about these two adult turtles. Hopefully we will see some nesting behaviour from Clementine in a couple months!