Perfect Day For a Turtle Walk

It was 71 last night and when we went to the Buttonwood access this morning before daylight, it was still cool and windy. It was really a nice morning for our turtle walk. I was hopeful that we would see some turtle tracks, since the first false crawl of the season was reported from Captiva night before last. Hopefully it will be back there soon to make a nest.

As we walked out the board walk, I noticed the Beach Moonflowers were starting to close up.

There weren't many people on the beach when we started, but they soon began coming to watch the sunrise.


There were a lot of different colors of sea on the beach this morning.




I think this is a Sanibel Sun Clock. :) If you enlarge the picture, you can see what we are to do each hour.








Lots of shells were scattered around, but we didn't look at them until we were on the way back.


We started seeing the baby Snowy Plovers as soon as we started walking. They are very intertaining. I saw a man walking over to one of their nesting areas, with a camera and tripod. Those little birds sure draw a lot of attention. :)








Duckie Doodle is checking beach art this morning. :)


After the art, we found this. A hole about 4 1/2' x 3' deep with a tunnel that comes out into another hold on the other side. I hope none of the tiny baby Snowy Plovers get in there or a sea turtle either. :(



Looked like somebody had marked off a spot to build a two room cottage. A homesteader, perhaps.


A rose is a rose, even when it's left on the shore.


These are your tall, thin, Thursday turtle walkers and their bag of trash. :)










That scallop sure had a lot of barnacles on it. Some people like the look, others spend lots of time trying to get them off the shell. Unless it is really a shell I just can't leave behind, I don't take them anymore. Another problem is if there happens to be a live one and you don't notice, it gets really smelly!






Did you know that more than half of the world's cork originates in southern Portugal. The bark of the Cork Oak tree is harvested about every 9 or 10 years, and then it has to dry for a year or two. Then it's boiled to remove anything harmful, cleaned and dried before it is ready to use. I'm thinking we should take better care of our corks. :) So...you think this one washed into shore or maybe somebody popped a cork on the beach last night. Makes me wonder if this had anything to do with the rose I saw.

One turtle walker almost got left behind because she was picking up Bubble shells from the high tide line.



Shells from today.


The temperature got up to 88 degrees today, but it was pleasant out because the wind kept you cool.

This evening we went off island. On the way back I noticed the Osprey nest on the sign just before the Sanibel Causeway Toll Booth. There have been several new nests put on poles in this area during the last few weeks. I imagine the plan is to lure them away from the road signs. It is kind of comical that when they were putting one of those tall poles up, they had traffic stopped during the busiest time of day. That caused bumper to bumper traffic backed up from that point, across the causeway, and all the way to the west end of Periwinkle Way. I guess it's like stopping your car in the middle of the road, holding everyone else back, until a turtle or a bird crosses the street. I think it's part of what we love about this place. When I first saw those tall poles with the nesting platform on the top, I wondered if and when the Osprey would think it was safe to build a nest on them. Today, I saw that they had already started building nests on two of them.






Doc Bruce of the Sanibel Sea School says, "It is time for the leader of our country to tell us we must use alternative energy. It's Not a spill!