Carol, are we looking south in this photo? The wall of the building next to the nest facing east?Today at 16.34View attachment 261395
Carol, are we looking south in this photo? The wall of the building next to the nest facing east?Today at 16.34View attachment 261395
The stones are now off. Sorry didn't think about that.@CarolM Do you have a rock on top of the sensor location? If so, that would alter the temperature readings as the rock would heat more than ground and hold heat longer. We would like the sensor location as "natural" as possible as a mother tortoise would leave it.
Sorry Mark, just checked. Still nothing.@CarolM Have you received the data loggers yet? Last I saw they left Johannesburg on the 6th. Let me know when you get them. I sent you 3.
I also am working with the park warden for the largest Burmese Star facility in Myanmar. She has 3170 Burmese in her care right now. I am working on getting her some data loggers as well. She never thought that necessary as they just naturally hatch!, but I am trying to convince her!!
Such a pity that I cannot get one in an actual nest, as it would be very interesting to see if the temps spike closer to hatching dates. Thank you Mark for putting it all together.We got the 2 week update from Carol on the C angulata nest we are monitoring. Here is the updated chart. I have added rainfall data from her town weather station as I like to track rainfall events when I am looking at nest data. I have charts like this for the past year+ on locations in the middle of their prime natural habitats for G platynota, S p pardalis, and A radiata. I don't have in situ nest data - so hopefully as we collect data from nests we can extrapolate what nests would be with those conditions. I also graph cloud cover in all my other data set graphs, but did not here with Carol's.
Interesting to me that we are now 3 weeks past summer solstice and the nest temperature for C angulata has only briefly peaked above 80° for a few hours on a handful of days. The average nest temperature is running about 75°!
Nest temp is red. Air temp is grey. Rainfall -blue- to show graphically on chart is X100 and is for a 3 hour period. So a reading of 10 on the chart for rainfall is 0.1 " of rain in that 3 hour period. This allow rain events to be readily seen. I do this on all my weather charts when used to predict nest temps and hatch dates, etc.
View attachment 262351
Such a pity that I cannot get one in an actual nest, as it would be very interesting to see if the temps spike closer to hatching dates. Thank you Mark for putting it all together.
Awww. Now I am blushing. [emoji5]Carol, you are awesome. Thank you.
Oh dear. Now I am doubting if I did it right. I will have to check tomorrow to make sure.Great work, Carol. You are indeed awesome!
I love the placements. The important thing is to have the same amount (depth) of soil on top of the looger as there is on top of the egg. Since they are such shallow nests, an Inch makes a huge difference.
As an example, my test nests for G platynota are 6" deep - the average to mid nest for the nests my girls dig. At that depth on days with an ambient 20°f temp swing, your nest swings about 10°f. My nests swing 5°F. The amount of direct sun makes a big difference on top of that. Especially with how sandy the soil is where you are.