MY FIRST TERRAPIN (And Irma's first blog post!)

It’s been two weeks since I started volunteering at the Centre and yesterday it was only Vanessa and I. The few days I’ve been at the Centre have been amazing, I fell in love with the terrapins on my first day at the Centre which was an orientation, they were one of the main reasons I decided to stay and volunteer.

I have learned a lot of new things during this time, and developed some new skills. No matter how slimy and smelly I get, it has been always worth the work. Rachel has been a great teacher and I learn a whole lot more everyday from her.

One of my responsibilities of the day was to retrieve the traps from yesterday, and after a disappointing results for the first two I pulled the last trap towards me expecting the same and amazingly a black mud turtle was staring up at me. It was the cutest thing ever, I was so excited for having retrieved my first terrapin Vanessa thought I was joking. That there made my day. We weighed, measured it and took pictures and marked it to be released as it showed no sign of unfitness.

Other than that we had to do a bird survey in the field. And feed the terrapins, as I distributed the food in the water Rambo who was on his way to the mud part area did a detour and tried to catch a food stick, then another one and another. Barely an hour later all the food was gone from his tank compared to usual when he doesn’t show much interest in the food during feed.

Today was very accomplished; perfectly ending the week.

Irma's first terrapin - her name is Alex!