START LOOKING!

It's time to start looking - for sea turtle nests along our coast. I haven't found any in our section of the beach, yet, but I noticed that we had recorded one as early as March 28 last year, so.... it's time to start our walks along the beach and take our GPS with us to record the locations. We will follow much the same procedure as last year, and only record in our log those nests officially located and "staked-off" by the employees of the EAI (Environmental Associates, Inc.). EAI contracted with the county last year to "monitor turtle nests on Hutchinson Island from Normandy Beach in St. Lucie County south to the St. Lucie Inlet and from the Fort Pierce Inlet south to the Ocean Village condominiums in the South Beach area of Fort Pierce", according to a June 21, 2009 article in the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. I'm guessing (and hoping) that they will be hired again this year, since they did a great job last year. According to their stats as of June 21, 2009, our sections of the beach (noted above) counted 739 Loggerhead nests, 304 Leatherback nests, and only 2 Green sea turtle nests. As of September 25, 2009 our stats for a smaller stretch of beach showed that 38 Loggerhead nests had hatched, and 3 Leatherback nests had survived to hatch (see photos from last year's blog entries). While we had recorded that 51 nests had been laid, only 41 survived wave and/or storm damages to complete their cycle and hatch.

Check in with this blog as the spring and summer progresses and new sea turtle nests are laid. We'll try to keep you posted with new photos, videos and naratives of the nesting season, just as we did last year on this site.

MAP FINALE

It's a wrap! Yes, as far as our stretch of beach is concerned, the 2009 sea turtle nesting season is over. Final results (see map) show that we ended up with a total of 51 nests for the season - 48 Loggerhead nests and 3 Leatherback nests. Of those 51 nests, 41 hatched (green tags) and 10 were destroyed by wave or storm action (blue tags). The last one to hatch, by or records, was TC731 - a Loggerhead nest laid on July 31, 2009. It started to "hatch" on September 21. For comparison, we had 83 nests total during the 2008 nesting season, with 23 destroyed by storms and only 50 hatching. As a result, even though we started out the season with 32 fewer nests (51 vs. 83), only 9 fewer nests (41) actually survived to hatch this year than was the number that hatched last year (50).

It was a very interesting season and we'll hope that a high percentage of those hatchlings actually survive to adulthood and come back to visit our beaches in 20-30 years to lay new nests. Here's to the survival of our wonderful sea-faring friends!

GRAND TOTAL

This week's totals for sea turtle nests on our section of beach totals 38 hatched, 10 wave/storm destroyed, and 3 still unhatched nests. Two of those unhatched nests are due to hatch next week, while the last one should hatch in early October - based on our average of 55 days of incubation that was determined with last year's 83 nests.

Today, I found one nest (TCC729) that had several hatchling trails that were visible in the morning when I walked the beach. I made a special attempt to track the trails of those hatchlings who went in directions away from the ocean during their night travels. Several had traveled many yards parallel to the ocean shore, eventually either ending up in the sea oats and grasses on the dune line, or eventually finding their way back to the ocean. One trail of special interest had traveled 280 yards parallel to the ocean before ending up in the ocean! My guesstimate of yards was based on my beach stride on the beach which I calculate to be about 1 yard per stride. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate some of the hatchlings whose tracks ended up in the dune grasses. One track even followed one of the pedestrian trails leading from the road to the beach - another 100 yards, or so, journey. Hopefully, someone found him/her early in the morning and assisted him/her in returning to the ocean. And so it goes as we come to the end of this sea turtle nesting season!

ANOTHER INTERESTING WEBSITE

I came across a website that had some interesting photos and videos of a Loggerhead nest hatching at night. The site is at www.fla-keys.com/turtlecam . It's better footage than my cell phone video of the Leatherback nest hatching with the 64 hatchlings, but they are equally interesting. Several nests hatched along our stretch of beach in the past couple of weeks, but several were also destroyed by wave action and high tides. Our tally to date is 35 hatched, 8 wave/storm destroyed, and 8 remaining. The most recent nest hatched yesterday (9/4/09) and had been projected to hatch on 9/11/09, using last year's average of 55 days for all 83 nests (Loggerhead and Leatherback) documented last year. All remaining nests are identified as Loggerhead nests.

CAUGHT IN THE NESTING ACT

It was reported to me that these photos (sent to me anonymously) were of a Loggerhead mom on our stretch of beach back in July. Even though people are not supposed to "distract" the sea turtles when they come up on the beach to lay their eggs, someone obviously did - and got some great shots to share. Unfortunately, it was also reported by the photographers that the turtle was distracted by their presence and did not stop to lay a nest of eggs in that location on the beach. Told you so!

EGGS OVER! HATCHLINGS IN THE OCEAN

It's been a slow week, but there still is evidence that the sea turtle nests are hatching. This scene was probably the result of a crab that had pulled some of these egg shells up to the surface after the hatchlings had left the nest. The egg "shells" are soft and pliable when moist. Once they have dried out, they feel like crumbled paper. The most recent count is as follows: 33 our of 51 nests have hatched; 18 still unhatched, with possibly 1 that has been destroyed by wave action on the beach. It appears that there was also one undocumented nest on the north side of our beach area that hatched on August 13. I'm anxious for the remaining nests to hatch before any major storms destroy some of the remaining unhatched nests.

AN EVEN DOZEN

Another couple of dozen Loggerhead hatchlings from nest TC2616 made it to the ocean on 8/3/09. They were all in jeopardy because they started out of the nest after the sun was up and getting quite hot. Most hatchlings that are successful in making it to the water, do their traveling during the cool, and safer, night hours.