Thursday, August 12, 2010

Turtle Walk Thursday

This was our 15th turtle walk this nesting season. It was a little darker this morning than it usually is. I saw no one on the beach when we first started, but in a few minutes I saw bright flashlights shining, way up the beach. I guess they didn't get the memo about no flashlights during sea turtle nesting season.

It was interesting walking, because the tides have been pretty high during the last few days. There was a little sea wrack to look at, and some shells. Sadly, some of the sea turtle nests got washed out from those high tides. The nest in our zone has been washed over, so we'll just have to wait to find out if the eggs still hatch. It seems that things are just stacked against the poor turtles' survival.
















someone's cast offs.








Sun shining through a Pen Shell.


























A Brittle Starfish.







a very small starfish. We carried a lot of starfish back to the water.








There were larger and deeper areas of shells, in some places.


One perfect little treasure! I forgot to put it in the picture below.


A live Pear Whelk


Starfish Trail.


Coconut tracks!


I only picked up a few shells to take home. I had two more small Angel Wings, but they got broken in the shell bag on the way home.

8 comments:

Dave said...

Nice photos. I love the sea.- Dave

Savvy said...

I love the picture of the starfish trail!! : ) And, oooof course, the sunrise pictures. So pretty. I love the sky when its that pretty cotton candy pink.

Audrey said...

Love you photos and video. We so enjoyed our time in Sanibel!! I have been there 3 other times and love it every time. Wish we could afford to live there all the time. Til then, we look forward to our next visit......

Wonderful blog! I will be following you.
Audrey
aka AudreyGardenLady

George said...

You certainly get some wonderful pictures of the sunrise when walking the beach so early. I hope the sea turtle eggs in your area still hatch.

sue in mexico mo said...

I hope the turtle eggs are safe. Can you tell if they are still in the next? Thanks for another walk on the beach.

Tootie said...

Sue, our nest was washed over by a high tide, but wasn't washed out. There were a number of nests in other zones that were washed out. Hopefully ours will still hatch, but you never know. It depends how long water stayed over it and if it packed the sand down too much. Just have to wait and see.

Thanks everyone!

Leo said...

Hi there - just left Sanibel this morning. We had a great time...I am going to post photos of my findings...I spent some time throwing starfish back into the water and also some really large shells - sand dollars and I think whelk...that I found on Cayo Costa Island. Most of the bigger stuff we found was still alive - so of course, we threw them back in. One was a really large whelk, wished I had a photo - and the creature looked like a big hairy red tarantula. My husband said it was a crab :)...it was in a shell about 9 inches long...I found it in about a foot of water. It was beautiful.

Love your starfish trail photo!

Kathi said...

Beautiful photos! Love the starfish walk!
May I borrow the "I love the beach" photo for my blog? It's perfect!!