Turtle Walk Tuesday

Before going into today's turtle walk, I want to share information I found in a news article today, concerning the Leatherback hatchlings. A few leatherback hatchlings from the east coast were released on Sanibel in the '70s as part of an experiment. They now think that it's possible one of those may have come back to nest here. That certainly helps give my curiosity a rest. :-)

I found another very nice blog called 'Two Turtle Trackers', that offers information and photos of the Leatherback hatchling release. I'm so happy I ran across it! Now I will also know what a morning turtle walk is like on their section of Bonita Beach in Florida. This is their fourth year of searching for new sea turtle nests on Bonita Beach as volunteers for Turtle Time.

Today was our 14th turtle walk of the season. The beach was quite busy you could see shellers, walkers and the people out just to watch the sunrise. It wasn't too hot this morning and on the beach, there was enough breeze to keep the noseeums away. Thank goodness!


Was this an alien visitor?

This tidal pool is still a stinky one.

We didn't have any new turtle activity today, but one of our nests that is due to hatch has been invaded by ghost crabs. We know they got into the egg chamber because there was a broken egg shell on top of the nest.



This varmint is a ghost crab. You hardly notice them on the beach, unless they scamper across the beach in front of you.

We called our Permittee and he came over to check the nest. He was going to call to give SCCF a report on it. They would then decide what to do about it, if anything. The usual procedure is to let nature take it's course. You know.....that whole 'Circle of Life' thing. It was sure tough walking away, knowing that baby turtles were probably getting their tiny eyeballs ripped out. I really don't like this part of the volunteer job. Needless to say, the rest of the day didn't look to bright to me, even though there were beautiful rays coming up from the sun.









Best viewed in HD on YouTube by clicking on screen below.




Maybe a tug boat?

Very simple, but everyone knows what it means. :-)

I don't know if this board came in with a Pirate on it, or if it washed up all be itself and the Pirate was lost at sea.

?????

More ????? It appeared to be a big guy with long hair, beard, and swimming thong. This is what the BIG shovel built last week, that I had a photo of.

Looks to me like they put his legs on backwards.



In the video, you could see a young father holding a baby as he watched the sunrise. On our way back, we found this tiny little sandal. I know it belonged to that baby, since it was the only one on the beach during the time it took us to walk back. They were no where in sight, so I picked it up and placed it further from the water where I thought it would be found when they returned to the beach.

Just before the Buttonwood Lane beach access, I noticed this healthy looking bunch of sea oats.

Being raised on a farm, I always knew this was oats, but until several years ago, I didn't realize just how important sea oats is to coastal dune areas. It is considered so important that wild sea oats is a protected species. Picking or disturbing sea oats is against the law. Violating the law carries a hefty fine, even for harvesting the seeds. (Sea oats is grown and sold in nurseries that have permits to propagate protected plant species.)

Sea oats not only beautify beaches, but most importantly it preserves the beach from erosion by stabilizing the sand dunes with a deep root system. Sea oats is highly drought, salt and heat tolerant, so it thrives in coastal areas.

You can see in this photo how it is trapping more sand, making the dunes grow. The more the dunes grow, the larger the plants will grow; and so the cycle will continue year after year, if it is not disturbed.

Due to hurricane damage on Sanibel, there has been a large amount of sea oats seedlings planted in the dunes. There was a huge amount of them planted at Bowman's Beach and other places. Next time you visit the beach, take a little extra care, not to trample on what might appear to be just a useless sprig of grass. It just may have a very important purpose in life. :-)

To read more about sea oats......

Turtle Nest Dig

This morning we went to Buttonwood Lane beach access, to walk over to the turtle nest that hatched Tuesday, to watch as it was dug. It was hot when we arrived and there was no breeze.

The first thing I noticed was beautiful clouds.


Then as I turned to look toward the nest area, I saw a huge something! I couldn't tell what it was until I got closer and then decided it was a whale.

There was lettering dug into the sand that said something like...Made to scale teen whale shark. The whole sand shark was covered with brown seaweed and had two fins made of cardboard.

The huge shark on the beach would be a neat thing, but it isn't 'Turtle Friendly'. It will probably take a backhoe to level it.


Looking toward the hatched turtle nest, I noticed quite a crowd gathering. Most of the volunteer turtle walkers for this zone had come to watch the dig, along with others who heard about it and also passersby. Our very own Biologist and 'Head, Sea Turtle Lady', Amanda Bryant was there to observe. :-)

Three days after a sea turtle nest hatches, it is dug by a Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation Permittee. This is done to rescue any baby turtles that might not have made it out on their own, to count the empty shells, any dead turtles and eggs that did not hatch. This information is recorded and sent to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. This collection of data helps to improve the chances for sea turtles to survive.

A typical nest has approximately 100 eggs. It takes hatchlings 2 to 3 days to dig out of the nest. They usually dig and come out as a group. Tuesday morning just before sunrise, we saw one turtle go into the gulf. By looking at what we could see of the tracks, it looked like a large number of turtles had come out of the nest during the night, before a rain and a few more after that rain. Today there were a few more fresh tracks from the nest to the water.


Around 8:00 AM this morning, the nest was dug by the Permittee who was on duty. The nest was about a foot and a half deep. He did this digging with his hands, to avoid injuring any live turtles that might still be in the nest. The first thing he found was a live turtle, but it wasn't moving around much. It was placed in a small sand pail with sea water in it. Soon it began moving his little flippers and swimming around. There were a lot of unhatched eggs, which were taken out along with the empty shells, to be counted. I couldn't hear very well, but I think there were less than a hundred eggs, and about half of them hatched.








The baby turtle was taken a little nearer to the water and released. He seemed to be having a little trouble with one of his flippers at first, but after he reached the water, he appeared to be ok and swam off into the waves. The Permittee then counted and replaced the shells into the nest and covered it with sand.



Best watched in HQ on YouTube by clicking on the screen below.


It is believed that the newly hatched turtles swim for at least 3 days straight out into the sea to avoid the shore predators, then begins floating among sargassum weed, feeding on small creatures that live in it. Sadly, it is thought that only 1 in 1000 hatchlings survives to adulthood.

As I walked back, I kept looking out at the water, wondering if that little turtle would be one of the lucky ones.

Turtle Walk Tuesday

Began the turtle walk at 6:30 this morning. There was a nest in our zone that was due to hatch around July 10, but it hadn't hatched yet. This morning we were anxious to check on it.

It was very still out, hardly any breeze. Even after using bug spray, the noseeums were being a nuisance.

These were near the Buttonwood access and looked like snowballs, so they were sandballs?

At first, there wasn't anyone else in eye sight. But as it got a little more light out, people came flocking onto the beach.

Yes, more sand traps for baby sea turtles. :-(



I had a feeling that we might see a hole in the nest and little tiny tracks where hatchlings might have made their escape. But, what we saw was even more exciting. There was a hole in the nest, but there was also a tiny little turtle coming out of it. YEAH!! It looked like the first one, because I didn't see any other tracks. It took that little guy a long time to get out over the edge of the hole. When he did, he took a moment to look around and then headed toward the water. It amazes me that they know that is where they are supposed to go.

(Much better if you enlarge the photos.)





The hatchling had a problem when he tried to pass a shallow sand hole that had been washed over by the waves. He slid sideways and then flipped over onto his back. Poor thing tried and tried but couldn't get turned over. I finally helped him and he was once again on his way. This is a perfect example of the problem caused by leaving holes on the beach. I wish there were some signs posted at the beach accesses etc. with warnings about them. I know some people just refuse to follow rules, but I think they would help.

The videos are not the greatest quality because they are from my phone. (There is a problem with the video camera, as it was dropped and in need of serious repair.) You can view these in HQ on YouTube.


Follow the tiny turtle as he makes the remainder of his walk to the water. Just after the first wave came in near him, it looked like he hesitated and then thought, I've got to do this, and went for it. I saw his head come up four times at the top of each wave and then he was gone.



After the little turtle swam away, I looked around and saw that the sun had just come up.

There were tidal pools along the way, a lot of seaweed that smelled a little and had LOTS of tiny flies and bugs in it. The beach walk itself, was not too pleasant this morning.



You already know what I'm thinking. :-(

A basketball star was here and left his flip flops?

Is this nasty, or what? Now this person had kept their butts nice and neat, all in one pile, but they couldn't take them away. These are not the kinds of things you want to pick up, or the other two bags of trash we found either, but you do what you gotta do.

These were left on the beach from last night. They were supposed to be at a pool near a condo building. Another thing to cause false crawls or for a turtle to get trapped in.

Mmm, Hmm, somebody dropped their noodle.

We see a lot of these little shell piles near the beach accesses. Tourists dispose of their rejects before leaving. I've seen other people thrilled to find them. :-)

This hole was about a foot and a half deep.



Is it a sign??? Does it mean anything to you?

Someones lost flip.

After we walked back, we stopped to check the turtle nest again. Since it was more light out, we could see several other little tracks around the hole and also the rain marks all over the sand. Possibly the nest hatched during the night and rain hid most of the tracks. Could we have seen the very last little turtle that came out? In three days, our permittee will dig the nest to make sure there are none that were not able to get out and also count the empty egg sacks. Then we will know how many hatched. I hope I get to be there when it is dug.