"Turtle Talk With Tootie": May 2011

Friday, May 20, 2011

Turtle Walk #3

We arrived at the beach this morning around 6:15. The temperature seemed perfect, until we stepped out onto the beach and felt the breeze, which was a little chilly. It had been down to 65 during the night. We kicked our shoes off, leaving them near the boardwalk. As soon as my feet touched the wet sand, which felt cold, I wished I had left shoes on. After walking a few minutes I warmed up. :)

Crabs drinking soda and throwing empties out???

I picked up 5 of these in the same area.

A plastic bag, just waiting to become turtle food. :(

I only had to bend over one time, reach all around me to pick up this trash. There were lots of small pieces of plastic on the beach this morning and 3 caps that boaters had lost in the water and washed in. Picked up two plastic bags full of trash today.

Turtle trap?

Beach erosion in front of Pointe Santo during the past several days.

Snowy Egret casting a long shadow.

Me and my shadow.

The end of a nice walk, but no turtle tracks. :(

As of today there are.....

Sanibel East- 2 nests, 7 false crawls

Sanibel West- 19 nests, 28 false crawls

Captiva- 10 nests, 0 false crawls

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Turtle Walk #2

Today was our second turtle walk of the season. The temperature was perfect, but not quite as much breeze as I would have liked. Because of that, the no-see-ums bothered us a little if we stopped walking. After there was more light they disappeared.

There was a lot of sea pork on the

beach this morning.

I tried to get a photo of the manatee that was swimming around. As we got near the area, there were around 5 people standing on the shore taking photos. By the time we got to that point, there were 4 more people and another 3 coming out a path. Word traveled fast! :) With the photo enlarged you can only see a dark line. On our way back, people were still there watching the manatee who had been joined by a pod of dolphins.

I think this is where that deep hole was last week. Pretty sad when they have to bring in heavy equipment to fill them in. There was also a big and very deep hole in front of Pointe Santo a couple of days ago. It has been filled in too. We saw the big tracks in several places. If we see anyone digging such a hole, we are supposed to call the police department and give them the location. Hopefully that will put an end to some of it.