Tracking update

Here is an update on our turtles that are currently being tracked on the website.
Aurora has now travelled 11,380 kilometers since we first "met" her. She is currently 4,524 East Southeast of Juno Beach near the Cape Verde Islands.

Rosalie is now moving in the same general direction as Aurora and has travelled 6,754 kilometers. Her battery condition is great and we hope to track here for quite a bit longer.

Tracking update

Here is an update on our turtles that are currently being tracked on the website.
Aurora has now travelled 11,380 kilometers since we first "met" her. She is currently 4,524 East Southeast of Juno Beach near the Cape Verde Islands.

Rosalie is now moving in the same general direction as Aurora and has travelled 6,754 kilometers. Her battery condition is great and we hope to track here for quite a bit longer.

A few updates

Hey Everybody! Thought I would give you a few updates on what we have been up to. The 2005 nesting season is now just about finished. We have been getting a new green turtle nest every week or so, but the leatherbacks and loggerheads are finished for the year. Both Kelly and I have been busy with other projects and working with our collected data on papers and presentations. Kelly is now at the National Marine Fisheries Service Atlantic Leatherback Expert Working Group meeting in the caribbean. When she gets back, maybe she will post about the work they accomplished.
There has been some exciting happenings at the Marinelife Center lately. Our new building is now being built! You can check it out here: Building updates Our boss and leader for the past few years has left us to pursue other interests and we now have a new executive director.
On a personal note, I have been taking a lot of pictures lately and have set up a new website to showcase a few of them. Check out www.turtleimages.org I hope to collect a large collection of images relating to sea turtle conservation and protection.
AND it looks like we may have another hurricane affecting Florida! The current projected path of Wilma is right over my house. It will be an interesting weekend!

Updates

Hey Everybody! Sorry for the lack of updates lately. We have been adjusting to our new schedules and getting caught up on all the work negelected during leatherback season.

The leatherback nests are starting to hatch out now. This morning I had SIX nests hatch! In three days I will dig them up and see how well they did.

I watched this little guy crawl to the water just as the sun was rising this morning.

Found that transmitter...

Wanted to give you an update on the transmitter that we heard from our office on Monday June 13th. We found it!

On 6-13-05 at around 11PM I turned our police scanner on here in my office. (being on the beach all night can be a bit boring and we like to know what is going on out there) The scanner has the argos frequency 401.650 MHz programmed in it, and we often use the scanner to verify that our transmitters are working before deployment. It has even been used to locate a turtle or two!

At around 11:30am Monday the scanner stopped on the frequency and I noticed that there was a transmitter sending a signal. I soon realized there was a transmitter in the area and that it was NOT one of ours. I had checked the two inactive ransmitters here in the office and quickly logged on to argos and saw our active PTT's were not in the area (we had two turtles being tracked near Cape Cod MA and Savannah GA) We had also deployed two Wildlife Computers PAT transmitters along with the folks from NMFS this season and I was fully convinced that I was listening to one of those that had popped off one of our leatherbacks prematurely and floated back to our beach. I rode around the beach for a while on the ATV with the scanner trying to locate the signal - It seemed to be coming from an area near my office which is only about 150 meters from the beach. When the sun came up I recruited Niki and her friend Gwen to wander the beach and adjacent dune looking for it. We probably spent two hours wandering around looking for something that I KNEW was in the area. It was really rather frustrating!

Tired, and defeated we had decided to give up and head to bed. I put a few "have you seen this.." signs up along the beach and was getting ready to go home. But at around 11am, the signal abruptly stopped. Confused, and trying to figure out what happened I had a wierd thought that maybe it was in the garbage and someone had just collected it. I ran down to the beach and watched a guy on a tractor driving north after emptying the trash!

Could I really be right?? Was the transmitter in the trash? Or was it attached to a bird and it had just flown off?? Sandy and I hopped in the car with the scanner and found the guy about a mile away loading his tractor on the truck. Scanner beeping once again, we decided to follow the guy in the car to his next stop a few miles away. We picked up Niki and headed south to Singer Island, where we found him in a county park about 10 miles to our south. When we pulled in to the park I had just said, "Oh well, no signal" when the scanner beeped once again! We were excited and bummed at the same time. It meant I needed to go into the back of the garbage truck which was not too pleasant. Actually it was really, really nasty!

After a few minutes of searching, we pulled out a clear plastic bag and I could see a PAT tag clearly! I yelled and pulled it out to find out it was what I was looking for, but it was not one of the units we deployed a few weeks ago. Excited, we called Wildlife Computers and relayed the info. After a few hours, I got a call from Dr. Richard Kraus at Texas A&M University in Galveston. The transmitter was his and had been deployed on a 125 pound Blue Marlin a few days earlier! The tranmsitter was attached to the fish and was designed to "popoff" after 180 days. This transmitter released prematurely for some reason and by getting the transmitter back Dr. Kraus may be able to determine what actually happened.


A PAT used on one of our nesting leatherback turtles (the same as the one found in the garbage)

It was a really neat set of circumstances that led to the finding of the tag! Very odd that it would wash up on the beach directly east of my office in range of our police scanner. If we had not recovered the transmitter, Dr. Kraus may have never known what happened to that Blue Marlin!

If you happen to come across a turtle with a tag, banded bird, or a scientific looking instrument on the beach, please take a look and do your best contact the researcher with the information on the tag.

Here are some links to read more about the Texas A&M projects.

http://www.tamug.edu/pelagic
http://www.tamug.edu/pelagic/tagging-data.htm

quiet night

It was a pretty quiet night out there with only one nesting leatherback. Navi was found just as she was digging her egg chamber near the Juno Beach fishing pier. There were also quite a few greens and loggerheads nesting between the giant scarps that had formed a few days ago.

Curiously, our scanner here in the office has been beeping with the familiar sounds of Argos satellite transmisons since late last night. The interesting thing about it, is that we do not have any turtles with transmitters in the area?! The signal could be coming from anything with an argos transmitter like a bird, manatee, green sea turtle or even an offshore buoy. We are going to investigate the signal a bit more and see if we can figure out where it is coming from. More later.

Upside down

One turtle last night. I was riding the south route on ATV while Chris scoped from the road. No turtles on our first pass. It was tricky navigating the seaweed patches and cliffs, not to mention the sneaky rain squalls that came up from behind. On his second pass Chris was lucky to spot Lyra as she was making her way back to the water. He saw her from the pier and raced down to where she was. Lyra nested first in 2001, then again in 2003. My friend Jess joined me for the rest of the night. There were lots of loggerheads and green turtles nesting on the south end. They found little dips in the scarp where they were able to climb up the beach to nest. We did not see any leatherbacks, but we did see one interesting thing. On our final pass through MacArthur park we saw a really large white rock. Once we looked a bit closer we saw that it was a green turtle that had somehow flipped over! We hurried down to see if we could help and noticed that she was on top of a few small rocks (about 5 cm up from the sand). We heaved and pushed and finally pulled her over. I guess she had gotten up over the small rocks and a wave must have come and tipped her right over. She seemed a bit disoriented and exhausted when we righted her and it took her a while to get back into the water. She eventually did, and Jess and I felt lucky that we had found her. Jess had never seen an adult green close up, so she certainly got her chance!

Hurry up

Hey guys, our little turtle is heading north! You still have a chance to pick a name for her.


Click here for more details.

Will the rain ever stop??

Last night Niki and I dodged the rain and lighting once again. It has been a really wet season so far. The turtles don't seem to mind it though! Last night we saw one leatherback, missed one during a rain storm, saw two green turtles nesting and about 75 loggerheads. It was a pretty busy night.

Not as busy as Melbourne beach though... Dean Bagley gave us a call at around midnight with a couple of flipper tag numbers she did not recognize. I quickly checked our database and informed her that she had found "Salty", a turtle we tagged back in April. We were all pretty excited about the turtle that has now nested the furthest from Juno Beach! Not more than an hour later Dean called back to tell us that Salty was back on the beach nesting again. Wierd! Turns out that it was not Salty, but another of our Juno Beach turtles!! I am wracking my brain right now to remember which one it was but I am drawing a blank! Dean has now found three of "our girls" this season. Pretty exciting year this turned out to be. Things just keep getting more interesting. We've got something exciting planned for tonight. Check back in the morning!

proved me wrong

Last night's turtle count reached four (that we know of)...so I guess I was a bit quick to say that things were slowing down. I started south and found Clover nesting on Singer Island. She is a special turtle, missing her entire left rear flipper. Although it is harder for her to dig an egg chamber, she manages and fills it right up with eggs (often times spilling some over since the hole is usually a bit lop-sided). It took me a bit longer than I had hoped to get back up north. Once I finally did,I found a leatherback nest north of Seminole Golf Course. Sadly, I did not catch her so we don't know which turtle it was. Chris, however, found Julianna nesting south of the pier (a 2002 nester's first return) and then Shirley up in Carlin park. Shirley is also a turtle with missing parts. She is missing half of her right front flipper, an injury we don't see very often, but when we do, the turtles tend to be really large! Shirley is the exception, though, measuring in at about 134 cm carapace length, so she's a bit under average in that respect. With only a few rain storms soaking us from time to time, the night was rather pleasant. Let's hope for FOUR more tonight!

one in, one out

Only one leatherback to report for last night. We were hoping for more seeing as this is supposed to be the peak of our season. At around two a.m. Brettany and I found Shayna nesting just south of the Juno Beach Pier. Some nice people were quietly watching her lay eggs when we arrived and they were SO excited to have happened upon her. We fixed one of her tags, watched her cover up her nest and were on our way as a rain shower approached. The rest of the night was drizzly and hazy. Kelly did not see any leatherbacks, but she did see a few green turtles! We had the first green turtle nest on Juno Beach last night. So it appears that as leatherbacks make their way out of the area, in come the greens!

WOW

It was a busy one last night. Not really sure where to begin. I had a bad ride up here from my house(about an hour south) another tire blowout! Second one in a few weeks. I started out on the beach pretty late and thought I was going to miss a turtle - I did. But we did manage to see six others! First was Polaris who did not nest but only wandered around the beach for a few minutes, then came a tagged turtle up on Jupiter Beach, then another at the Jupiter Inlet, Kelly had one down on Singer Island, another near the Inlet, and finally a turtle near the Juno Beach fishing pier. I was really rushing around to find all of them and realized that one of the turtles was Musca! Musca is a turtle that we had placed a harness and transmitter on back on April 6th. We had not heard from her since May 8th, and I guess we know know why... Her harness was completely gone! Not really sure what happened to her harness but our last position for her was southeast of Cape Canaveral.

The last turtle was a new girl and I spotted her dropping eggs at round 3am. I added a few tags, measured her and went down the beach looking for more. The next time I went by her nest, she was still there. She had dug another hole and was trying to drop a few more eggs. I guess she must have done this 4 times, as she was still on the beach at 7am! I took a few pictures of her and will post some later today. Not really sure what her problem was, but she seemed rather odd!

Another wild night

Last night the lightning amazed Kelly and I until about 3am - when it decided to move ashore! We were both kicked off the beach by the lightning and rain for about an hour. Of course this is the right amount of time for a turtle to crawl up the beach, move around a bunch of sand and get back in the water before anyone can read your tag numbers! I missed a turtle during the rain, but I am not entirely sure that she nested. She would had to have been pretty fast. Not much else to report from the night. Kelly and I are starting to get pretty tired now. I think we may be getting too old for this! More later.

happy visitors

Last night one leatherback made a few visitors to Juno Beach very happy. Trudy the turtle nested in Juno around 3 am. I was running the south route and spotted her after a snack break in the office. I was heading south and saw a crawl up, then a crawl down...DARN! I thought I had missed her, but then there was another crawl up, and so I found her just about finished digging her egg chamber. She had decided to move a bit farther down the beach before nesting, so her crawl was quite long and windy. I called Kelly, whose friend Jesse (who also worked on the project during the 2003 season) was visiting for the weekend. Jesse really hoped to see a leatherback before she left and she had been skunked the past two nights. So those two raced up to see the turtle (Kelly had tagged her last time she nested). Another visitor to Juno Beach was Joe and his wife CeCe (not sure if I spelled that right). Joe was the manager at MacArthur Beach State Park a few years ago (and one of the first major supporters of starting a leatherback project along our coast), and had never seen a leatherback in all his time there. I called them just after I found the turtle. Despite having traveled from Key West earlier in the day (in traffic!) they rallied and made their way to the beach. Despite poor directions and difficulty locating the turtle, they got to her just as she was finishing up her nest and making her way back to the water. They were so excited to see her, but not so happy about some of the really bad beachfront lighting near where Trudy nested. Nevertheless, Trudy made it back into the water (CeCe was watching through the nightscope and said she shook her head once she hit the water, seemingly relieved to feel the cool water rinse her eyes, but that's just a guess!)
Chris had a quiet night up North (well, not so quiet if you count all the people on the beach).

two turtles

Last night was a very pretty night to be on the beach. The light show offshore turned the heat and the bugs into only minor annoyances! The lightning that stayed offshore was really pretty and fun to photograph between runs up the beach.



Niki and I each found a nesting leatherback at 3:15am (Physalia and Oregon). They both emerged from the water at almost exactly the same time and were on the beach until after 5am. There were lots of people on the beach last night and the loggerheads didn't seem to like the company! There have been about 100 crawls each night for the past week, but last night I only recorded 50. More tonight!

Found her

Another good night for the project! I went up to Hutchinson Island last night at around 9pm looking for Amelie. I drove frantically along A1A in the rain for quite a while without hearing her familiar beep from the VHF receiver. Kelly was down at the MLC and gave me an update on her last reported location and I headed south to find her signal - it was weak, but I had found her! She was to the south of me and I was concerned that she may have been on the south side if the St. Lucie Inlet. I was very relieved to find her near Bathtub Beach swimming happily offshore! After about a half hour of listening to her, I finally heard a distinctive signal. She was close, really close! I pulled out the night scope and saw Amelie emerge from the large swells right in front of me. It was really cool to see a turtle emerge from the water where I expected at the time she was expected!! I don't ever think I will forget the image.

I watched her crawl up the beach and start to dig her nest. Jeanette Wyneken and her group from Harbor Branch came down to watch as we removed the harness/transmitter and checked her out. She was perfect! Sometimes the harness can irritate the carapace of the turtle a little bit, but she was in great shape! We watched her finish her nest, cover it up and crawl to the water. I gave her a pat on the back, said goodbye and thanked her for her help in unraveling the mysteries of our Florida leatherbacks. We put a lot of effort in trying to find Amelie over the last few days. Want to bet that she will be back here on Juno in ten days?!



Here is an aerial view of the area where she nested

I did not see a turtle

But I did hear one! I spent the night following "Amelie" down the beach along Hutchinson Island. Amelie has a transmitter attached to her that we are trying to remove before she heads off to northern waters. Satellite data put her location near the St. Lucie nuclear power plant in the evening and that is exactly where I located her! She was still swimming south, so I followed her until about 4:30 am driving south along the road. It was amazing to see the effects of hurricane Frances and Jeanne near the north end of the island. The beach was changed dramatically with NO vegetation along most of the beach. Amelie did not nest last night so we will be back out there again tonight. I have been recording some audio from the search and will post it here in a few days.

As I was following Amelie up north Sandy and Kelly were busy down south with a few turtles. I believe there were three in total. Navi, Deneen and a new turtle which Sandy named Stella.

Niki was helping out Jeanette Wyneken and Christie Whelan on Jensen Beach last night and found one turtle which they named Nora. There is a terrible story to be told about her and we are waiting for Jeanette to write a bit and send us a photo to post. Click here for more information. Time for bed!

it was "hot" up North

last night both Chris and I had the feeling that the leatherbacks would start nesting earlier in the night. they had been coming up around 2 or 3 the previous few nights. we started out as the tide was receding, but the surf was much higher than the night before. i passed lots of people on my way north and they all asked "where are the turtles," since none of us had seen a single crawl. i knew that all we had to do was wait...and it was not long before the loggerheads began emerging en masse. Chris called to report "hundreds" of loggerheads on his end of the beach.

on my second run i spotted a leatherback in the distance with a few young guys a little too close to her. she ended up false crawling, not sure if she liked the immediate company as she made her way out of the water (she was not tagged). i continued along, making my way south. once i headed back up north, and made it to Carlin Park i saw a leatherback just coming out of the water. she was still in the surf and i knew it was a leathery turtle by the way her carapace was distinctively pointy at the rear end. you can really see this feature through the night scope on a bright night. i watched her for a bit and it appeared that she was quite indecisive. she crawled up, then down, then up, then made a nice figure 8, and bailed. it was the same turtle as before.

disappointed, i continued north only to find another leatherback body pitting up near the Ocean Trails condo. she was just beginning to dig, AND she was not tagged either, so i had plenty of time to get my gear ready and collect all the information i needed from her and give her some tags. i decided to name her Patricia after my mom, who is leaving Juno for the summer with my stepdad Gordon (have fun guys!). just as i finished up my work with this new turtle i headed south only to see ANOTHER leatherback crawling up the beach only a few hundred meters from the other one. i watched from a distance as she crawled up, then down, then up, then down...i was sensing a pattern...as this turtle made her final walk back to the water i checked her for tags (none), so i assume this was the turtle that crawled twice before. i wonder what she found so displeasing!

chris had no leatherbacks to report but did see some wildlife on Singer Island...! we are looking for Musca at the moment, hoping to see her one more time before she leaves Florida waters for the season. she's got a satellite/gps tag that we would like to remove before she goes. stay tuned for updates on that.

One big fish!

Last night was a quiet cool pretty night out there. The ocean was as smooth as glass for most of the night and the reflection from the moon was beautiful.


There were no leatherbacks that nested in our survey area. Kelly was out on the beach with a few friends looking at Loggerheads and promised us that there would be a turtle at around 3am. Niki and I looked, and looked, and looked but not a single leatherback crawl was found. I did see something GIANT in the water though. At around 5am on my last pass, I was watching the water for loggerhead turtles when I saw a huge torpedo shaped shadow near the shoreline. I picked up the night scope to take a look and watched it move rapidly offshore. There will be no night swimming for me for a while....

salty night

Last night was warm, salty and leatherbacky. We found two turtles last night on the north end of the survey area. I came across Magdalena at around midnight and then found Bunny at the popular leatherback nesting time of 4AM. Kelly and Robbin Trindell (Florida FWC)rode the south end of the beach and watched quite a few loggerheads nesting but did not find any leatherbacks. Kelly and Robbin took a trip up north to see Magdalena finish her nest and crawl to the water.

We are back out there tonight and will be deploying PAT transmitters with folks from NOAA Fisheries Service on two nesting leatherbacks. We will post more information about the PAT transmitters in the next few days.

Beep, beep, beep-beep-beep

We found her! After searching for the last three days, we finally found Stewart. Kelly, Niki, Sandy and I were at it once again patrolling our beach and the beaches to the south last night. Sandy and I set ourselves up south of the Lake Worth Inlet on Palm Beach island. We were using the VHF receiver and had been hearing her signal off of the inlet at around 11pm. By midnight her signal put her location to our south so we headed that way and found a good spot to scan the ocean for her. After about 20 minutes we decided she was still moving south so once again moved a mile or two down the beach and listened again. The spot we stopped at seemed pretty good since Kelly and I found a turtle down there about two weeks ago. We turned on the VHF once again and heard - NOTHING! We waited for a while and finally heard a strong signal which seemed to be right in our vicinity. We listened as her signal became very strong and we could hear the rapid beep-beep-beep of her transmitter. This signal meant that she had been at the surface for a good amount of time or else she had exited the water. We still thought she was in the water, but were surprised that we once again heard the rapid beep-beep-beep and then a quicker pulse rate on the receiver. This could mean only one thing.... Stewart was on the beach to our north!!
We started running to the car to race up the beach before Sandy said "maybe we should look in the night scope first" Good idea, because Stewart was only about 400 meters north of us crawling up the beach!


We grabbed our gear and headed up the beach to find her crawling up the dune to nest. She quickly dug a nest and started to drop her eggs. Sandy and I removed her harness, checked her condition and thanked her allowing us to track her for a little while. She did seem a little happier with the transmitter off and we hope to see her again soon. Maybe ten days from now! Time for bed!

Beep beep beep

Last night we all were looking for "Stewart" Stewart the turtle was located near the Jupiter Inlet at 7:30pm last night, so Sandy and I went looking for her with the VHF receiver while Niki and Kelly (working on her night off!) ran the beach on the bikes looking for other turtles.

At around midnight Sandy and I heard a good signal from Stewart and it sounded like she was on the beach. We immediately called Kelly and she drove up north to try to find her. No luck, but she did find a track from a turtle that did not nest! We all thought it was the missing turtle and were very excited to see a turtle exit the water! She did not have a transmitter though, but she did have a flipper tag. It was Lyra (click that link and notice the date she was first tagged) Kelly worked her up and Sandy and I continued the search, but we were unable to locate Stewart. Niki had been tagging a new turtle down south during all of this. We all met up at the office at 3:30am to wait for satellite data to arrive from our turtles. Data arrived and showed Stewart south near MacArthur Park and I was able to locate her with the VHF this morning still heading south.

The search continues tonight! Stewart will probably nest somewhere near the Lake Worth Inlet, and we will be waiting.

Funny image

Last night I saw a loggerhead turtle crawling up the beach right up a leatherback track from a few nights ago. The size difference amused me and reminded me of the people I meet at night on the beach that have never seen a leatherback turtle on the beach. They always tell me that they just saw a "huge" turtle. I ask them where and proceed up the beach only to find a relatively small loggerhead. The funniest thing about the loggerhead last night was that it nested right on top of the leatherback nest. The little loggerhead looked as if she was nesting on a big white fluffy bed that had been turned down by the leatherback, the two stakes used to mark the leatherback nest forming the bedposts!

On the leatherback front:

We saw three leatherbacks last night! I found Veronica and Juno nesting nesting on the north section of beach and Kelly found Pisces down on the south end.

Arribada

I usually ride the north end of the survey area but last night I rode the ATV south to Singer Island for a change of pace. Kelly has been finding quite a few leatherbacks near the Ocean Mall and I hoped to find one also. Imagine my suprise when I spotted a whole arribada of leatherbacks through one of our night vision scopes!


You can probably tell that they really are not leatherbacks! But - trust me, when you see a big black lump ( or 10! ) through a scope your heartbeat gets kicked up a bit. These are not leatherbacks though, just piles of Sargassum weed that have been raked together for disposal. I do sometimes dream about beaches where leatherbacks nest in large numbers! Maybe Florida will be that place in a few more years??

No leatherback nests were recorded on our survey area last night. The loggerheads seem to be doing pretty good though. I recorded 12 nests on my morning survey this morning!

Busy night - again

Last night was another busy night! I started the night off searching for one of our turtles outfitted with a transmitter. I found her swimming off the coast near the Boynton Beach inlet (south Lake Worth) She was still swimming south and we are expecting her to nest tonight.

The waves were quite large last night and Kelly was unable to get on the beach until about 10:30pm. I arrived on Juno at about the same time and found a leatherback nesting on my first pass to the north. The turtle was a new leatherback for us and I quickly tagged, measured and checked her out. A few kids stopped by and were amazed by her size. I enjoy peoples first reaction to the sight of a nesting leatherback. Usually involves a few adjectives! They decided to name her Betsie. On the next run I found another new leatherback! This one was a bit confusing to me as she had already finished nesting by the time I spotted her. She was either the fastest leatherback in the world or I drove right past her on my first run??! We are pretty tired by this time of the season so it is possible. Finally kelly spotted a turtle down south on Singer Island. Kelly needed to get out of there fast ast the tide was coming in, so I drove down there in the car and worked up the turtle while Kelly took over for me on the north side. This was another new turtle and she is now tagged and named Kylie. Kylie - for Niki's Kylie Minogue obsession!

A fun night!

Tammy and Tessie

Tammy and Tessy are characters in a book by Suzanne Tate In the book, Tammy and Tessie emerge from their nest together and begin their long life at sea. When Tammy finally emerged from the sea as an adult to lay eggs, she was suprised to find her sister Tessie also nesting on the same stretch of beach! Kelly and I often see Loggerheads nesting side by side (almost holding each others flippers) We call these "Tammy and Tessie events" Sometimes even Leatherback turtles do it!
Tonight Kelly and I just missed finding our turtle Musca nesting but we did find another turtle nesting in almost the same exact location. I called Kelly this morning after decoding the satellite data to tell her "we found Tessie, but we missed Tammy" Maybe next time.... Check out the audio post below.

Kelly and Chris call in from the road

all wrapped up

Just wanted to report on Hutchinson for the last time. Construction has wrapped up and we have finished our nightly surveys. The last night out there, Amelie (a satellite transmitter turtle) nested, along with two other new turtles, on Jensen Beach. Unfortunately I was not on that beach, so they did not get tags. But Serina sure had a busy night! So now the only beach we are surveying at night is Ft. Pierce, while they complete their renourishment project. No turtles have nested up there yet, but hopefully we'll see some soon. It's been a great opportunity to work on Hutchinson this summer, thanks Bob and Erik! I will miss seeing our new Hutchinson turtles though :(

Not much to report

Not much to report from last night. It was warm, windy and salty once again. The wind has picked up from the south in advance of a cool front and the resulting waves have scarped the beach quite a bit during the course of the night making riding along the beach dificult. I did not see a single turtle on my area, but kelly must have seen a few! On my morning ride to count crawls and mark them with stakes and GPS, I found 13 crawls - all down on the south end.

On the tracking front, Beatrice is no longer transmitting. We have not heard from her for over a month now and have come to the conclusion that her harness likely fell off her. The harness that we use was designed by Scott Eckert (WIDECAST/Duke University) to release itself from the turtle after a period of time. Given that her last reported location was in a generally safe location for leatherbacks and that the batteries on her transmitter were in good condition we have concluded that the harness released prematurely. We are looking forward to seeing Beatrice next season when she nests here on Juno beach! A complete map of her movements is below. Clicking the map will take you to our main tracking pages.

Two turtles and a loon?

Last night seemed to speed by at a rapid pace. I was on the beach by about 10pm and found a turtle on the first run to the north. It was AJ- a turtle who is becoming quite the regular on our section of beach. I think we have seen her 4 times this season already! Kelly and I had a few Loggerheads last night to keep us busy between the leatherbacks. I found a second turtle at around 3:30am near the Juno beach fishing pier. She had just finished her nest and was returning to the sea. I quickly checked her tags, measured her and checked her out. It was Scorpio and we have not seen her since we tagged her in 2002.

As Kelly was driving home down the beach after the sun came up she called me to tell me about a Loon on the beach. I said I would check it out and continued North to count and mark the crawls from last night. There were 10! Although they were a bit late, the Loggerheads are here! I found the Loon and she appeared to be healthy so I brought her to the local lake and let her go. She drew a little blood from me before she left! I wish that someday I can hear the call of a Loon on a lake up north someday. Doesn't seem quite right to hear one on the beach in Florida! Not much else to report from last night. We hope the luck continues tonight.

Cold and wet

The night started off warm (almost hot) and dry but by 3am things had changed - dramatically! I started off the night by driving along A1A looking for one of our turtles with a satellite transmitter. The Transmitter also has a VHF beacon which sends out a signal that we are able to pick with a special receiver and antenna. The turtle was "Stewart" and she was right where I thought she was going to be! I found her signal very quickly along the beach near Briny Breezes which is a small community north of Delray beach. We did not need to check her, so I left and drove north to Juno Beach. Kelly had already surveyed the south section of beach and I needed to get up there and do my part! We both rode the beach looking for leatherbacks but did not come across any of the big rubbery beasts. Instead, I found a few loggerhead turtles! Loggerheads are small (compared to leatherbacks) crusty, generally cranky, funny looking turtles with big heads! I spent a few minutes with one to tag her and collect a sample for genetics and stable isotope analysis.

By about 2:30 the weather radar looked BAD. Kelly had decided to drive south and put her ATV away because we would not be doing any more surveying with the approaching weather. It was a good decision! The weather continued for the rest of the night and into the morning. I took a morning drive along the beach to mark loggerhead nests and see if there were any leatherbacks missed. We did not miss any!

And now we just received data from Stewart - the turtle She nested last night in the spot where I found her earlier in the evening. She even nested less than 3 kilometers from her last nest. Nice to find a predictable leatherback!

Eeeks.. a logger!

The loggerheads have arrived! 2 last night!

Expecting a few, but...

Didn't find any! Only one turtle made a brief appearance on our beach last night. I discovered a short crawl near the Marinelife Center steps late last night. I guess she did not like the look or feel of things and she left the beach before we noticed her. I thought that maybe she would have come up somewhere else this morning, but couldn't find her anywhere. Maybe tonight.

Exciting news on our tracked turtles! The turtle that Kelly and I deployed a transmitter on during the morning hours about 20 days ago nested on Miami Beach!! We received a data point from her on April 20 that showed she nested (along with another turtle)in a not so desirable spot for leatherbacks - amid the bright lights and condominiums of Miami. We contacted the folks down that way and they were able to verify a nest in the precise position that we recorded from the satellites!

Here is an aerial view of Aurora's nest:

Does that look like a Leatherback beach? Clicking the image will open up a map showing her movements since deployment.

A bad experience

Last night I encountered �Sara� a leatherback that we first encountered during the 2003 season. She had just finished digging an egg chamber and was getting ready to drop her eggs. I snuck up behind her and noticed that her cloaca (the cavity that the intestinal and reproductive tracts empty into) was very large and inflamed. We had several leatherbacks on the beach at this time, so I left her and headed north to find some more turtles. Nothing else. I headed back down to watch Sara finish her nest and was concerned that she still had not laid any eggs, though she seemed to be trying very hard. I made a few unsuccessful phone calls to our veterinary folks to see if there was anything I could do for her. After about 15 minutes of watching her struggle, I put on some gloves and took a look to see if there was anything I could see. I did not see anything external, so I went a little further and reached in and pulled out a football sized mass of plastic from her cloaca! She was plugged up by plastic debris she had ingested. I took out at least two masses of plastic and she seemed to be doing better. Her cloaca decreased in size by 2/3 and was not as sensitive as it was earlier. She covered her empty nest and crawled back into the water. We took a few images and collected the plastic. After chatting with our veterinarian Nancy Mettee and Jeanette Wyneken this morning we think that Sara has a good chance of passing the rest of the plastic and will likely return to nest.


Leatherbacks and all marine life face the threat of eating plastics everyday out in the ocean. Please try to reduce the quantity of plastics out in the environment. Get out there on the beach, or on your boat and try to clean up and make a difference to these turtles!


All marine turtle images taken in Florida were obtained with the approval of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife (USFWS) and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commision (FWC) under conditions not harmful to this or other turtles


More information about leatherback and plastic can be found here: http://www.floridaleatherbacks.com/research/threats2.asp

A recent post by Mathew Godfrey on seaturtle.org: http://www.seaturtle.org/blog/mgodfrey/000384.html


General info. about plastics in the marine environment:
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm


http://www.blueoceansociety.org/plastics.htm

1,2,3...

A three turtle night! Not long after Kelly headed to bed, I came across a leatherback nesting just south of the first turtle location. She was already covering her nest when I came across her at around 1am. It was "Tayler" a leatherback that Niki tagged up on Hutchinson Island 10 days ago.

No more than a few minutes later I found another leatherback near the Seminole Golf Course. (You can view our entire survey area on this page - scroll south to find the golf course!)This turtle had a few interesting tags. A quick phone call to Dean Bagley up in Melbourne Beach confirmed she was one of hers! Dean thinks she was tagged in 2002, but will verify and we'll post more information later today.

The wind has blown a LOT of sargassum onto the beach last night. The ride was really tough at high tide due the large mounds of weed. Some of them were 4 feet high! I was really bothered by the amount of plastic debris mixed in with the weed. On my morning run I counted 38 plastic buckets on the beach!

I understand that Mike James (Nova Scotia Leatherback Turtle
Working Group) is a fan of the "project log" !!! Hey Mike, We know you are reading this... I think everyone would like to see some of your notes during your field season. I bet you see some neat stuff.

Salty

The waves continued to hit the beach pretty hard last night. I was blocked from most of the beach during a few hours around high tide. I did find a leatherback though! She was nesting at around 1am near the Seminole Golf Course. I was suprised to see her as the water was up in the dunes at that point. I guess she had to drop some eggs and she was determined to find some dry sand. She nested in the sea oats and her nest was already washed over this morning. I named her "salty" because of the heavy, wet, salty air we have been having over the last few days. I guess I am only going to be using descriptive names for turtles this season....

On my morning pass I found a leatherback nest on the north end of the survey area. I was really not that suprised to find it as we were unable to get up that way most of the night. I was suprised at the location though. She nested in the Sea Grapes! I am not sure if I would have even seen her if I drove past her while nesting. Her nest was quite far into the dune vegetation.
The waves are beginning to calm down now and I expect we will have a few turtles tonight!

the twilight zone

things just don't seem right when you go to bed when it's light, and wake up when it's dark. i got a much needed 13 (that's right) hours of sleep last night (or last day, whatever). i had tonight off to do some school work; so, i caught up on the sleep and have been off the windy, salty beach. i must admit, it has been nice. the Hutchinson crew had no turtles to report as of around 2 am. it is still really yucky out there i hear. we had no turtles friday or saturday nights either. chris and i think they must have headed south to get out of the bad weather, and must have been crossing their flippers tightly, waiting for better weather to nest!

'nother pass

Just took a bit of a ride on the beach. It was pretty wild out there! The ocean has covered every bit of the beach and is washing the dune away in a few places. I will wait for the sun to come up before another ride. I have been spending the time here in the office working on some new stuff for the website. Almost finished with a zoomable map showing our entire survey area. Check it out here.

We will be putting a few maps of the turtles we are currently tracking shortly. Stay tuned.

Unsafe

I have decided that it is unsafe to continue the survey tonight. The swell has increased and now the waves are pushing up into the dune along most of the beach. The swell is predicted to increase in size overnight and subside late Sunday. It seems that the turtles are avoiding the beach also. No nests reported last night on the beaches in the area.

The marine radio is very busy tonight with distress calls and reports of containers adrift. The waves are giant!

The good and the bad

Another tough survey last night! The wind and waves were really wild once again. Sandy and I surveyed from the road for a while and then I headed out on the beach when the tide fell a little bit. The good thing was that the rain kept the flying sand to a minimum! The bad was that it rained and the waves may have been too large for leatherbacks. No turtles on Juno or up in Hutchinson.

Here is a good view of the conditions we endured last night. Inlet Camera

Miserable night - Great morning

Last night was just miserable! At around 11pm the wind started howling. It blew so hard out of the north that I almost quit surveying. It was almost impossible to drive north into the wind due to all of the kicked up sand. I finally figured out that if I closed one eye and used the night scope to cover the other I could drive using the scope. It was that bad!! The wind and resulting currents really ate up the beach and caused a nice scarp to form once again. It was luck that I found a leatherback at about 4am. I was driving north into the wind and saw a leatherback up near the dune. A little confused as to how she got there since there were NO tracks, I went up and checked her tags. It was Juno! Another 2001 turtle that we have not seen since the first season. Kelly and I watched her nest with Frank Harris and his wife Bebe. I remember that she had a terrible wound on her shoulder at the time, but happy to report it has healed completely!

Back to the missing tracks

The wind was so violent last night that it wiped the beach clean in minutes. There was hardly any evidence of turtles on the beach at all! Back down south as the sun was started to come up, I saw another turtle. Yep, no tracks at all but there she was. Another morning turtle - digging an egg chamber at around 5:30am. She was a new turtle and I named her "Habba" which is an Arabic word that means fierce howling winds.

When the sun was up, the wind died and it was a beautiful morning. Nobody believes me about how bad it really was last night!

the HI report

Things have been very crazy on Hutchinson lately...we have a few turtles that have made repeat appearances, and it's great to see familiar "faces" on the beach. Three new turtles that I tagged (Carla, Chrissa, Tierney) have been back to see us. Carla has been seen the most (seems to be picky about the sand she nests in and false crawls a lot), and Chriss and Tierney were back after about 10-11 days after I tagged them. Two new ones were tagged this week, Chassy and Caitlin. Looking forward to seeing more of them. I'm really beginning to feel at home on my new beach. I wish Chris, Kelly and Sandy could come up and survey with me up there! It's a huge beach now, after the renourishment project, but the sand it very coarse and densely packed. May be a problem for nesting turtles (maybe Loggerheads) or for developing and emerging hatchlings. We are relocating all of the leatherback nests now because heavy equipment is still driving all over the beach. Hopefully the hatching success will be good. I hope I get to tag a few more turtles before this position ends at the end of April...but what a great learning experience it has been!

Busy Night

6 turtles last night! Sandy and I found three turtles down on Juno and Niki and the crew on Hutchinson found an addition three nesting leatherbacks. I think Sandy and Niki will post mre information here in a little while. I am tired and off to bed!

New calendar system

Who needs the Gregorian, Mayan or Julian system?? Maybe we should start using the Leatherback calendar. Yesterday we had a turtle (Luna) arrive on her exact 4 year anniversary of her first recorded nest. Then, last night I came across a nesting leatherback with tag scars and PIT tag. I added a few new tags and checked her PIT tag number. It seemed like an odd number to me so I quickly checked the datasheets and located her number. It was Ursa. The second turtle to be tagged here on Juno Beach. She was only 2 days off from her original tagging date!
So now we have found the first and second tagged leatherback. I guess "mary" is due tonight...
It is fun to look back on all the old datasheets and remember the experience of our inaugural 2001 season. It seems as if all of our old leatherback friends are joining us this season. With all of the new girls showing up now and the "old girls" arriving also I guess this is going to be a huge season. 2001 was a record nesting year for us and we are expecting this year to be just as good or better!

Last night I heard from Dean Bagley at UCF in Melbourne beach. She was ecstatic when I answered her call at around 1AM. She found "China Girl"! China has been nesting there regularly for many years now and has been tracked via satellite for 2 seasons. Here harness and transmitter were missing once again - this is a good thing! The harness and trasnmitter are designed to fall off after a certain period of time and it is good to see that they are working.

sort of miserable

Last night did not start out being much fun for me. Maybe it was the realization that I have been working every night for a month now without a night off?? Probably not, because I hate nights off!

I had a hard time dealing with the giant waves and strong salty wind. The waves blocked off large portions of the beach from me for about two hours during high tide. I was sure there were nesting turtles everywhere, but I could not find any. Finally at around 3am I found what I was looking for. I spotted a turtle nesting below the high water line near the Jupiter Reef Club. She had walked in circles for a while before giving up and nesting in the wet sand. I snuck up behind her and checked her tags. XXS458?? XXS meant that this turtle was probably tagged in 2001 - four years ago! I ran back to the ATV and quicly scanned the list of turtles we have tagged. It was Luna! Luna was the first leatherback tagged on Juno Beach. I looked closer at the date of first encounter, I looked again and was amazed to see that it was April 12th. Exactly 4 years later, Luna was nesting on Juno beach.

I just processed the data from our satellite transmitters. It looks like Aurora nested last night on a beach about 15 kilometers north of our survey area. We had hoped she would come back to Juno so we coould check her harness. Maybe next time??

Found her!

As we started the survey last night, Sandy and I sat at the ATV acces ramp and had to decide which direction to go first. We chose south (we usually go north first) and not more than 15 minutes later we came across a turtle as she was just starting to dig an egg chamber. It was Molly! We waited for a few minutes and removed her transmitter and harness.

We were expecting Molly to nest on Saturday night and it seems that she tried. I offloaded the GPS data from her transmitter and found a GPS point that was collected at 10pm on on the beach a few miles north of our survey area near the Hobe Sound Wildlife Refuge. She likely crawled out of the water and encountered a scarp or something that made her turn around. A lot of the beaches here have been eroded quite a bit over the last two days with the crazy winds and swells we have been having. The Argos data show that she ventured south overnight and spent the day just off the beach here near the Marinelife Center. I had been hearing her signal all morning, and was a bit concerned she would nest sometime during the early evening hours. But, we found her and her transmitter is on it's way to be repaired.

There was a turtle that nested in MacArthur Park last night, but we were unable to make it to the area due to the waves. Niki reported no turtles on Hutchinson.

Chasing Molly!

A whole mess of turtles! Last night was a busy one. Niki saw 3 turtles on Hutchinson and we had one new turtle down here on Juno Beach. We tagged a new leatherback at around 12:00am just outside of the office here in Juno Beach. Niki was visited by Snowflake and Ana and another that I cannot remember (maybe I need some sleep)

I ran the beach with Sandy all night trying to find Molly. Molly was fitted 11 days ago with a satellite transmitter. Her transmitter is not functioning as designed and we hope to find it and reprogram it. I saw a leatherback in the surf at abround 1am last night and she apeared to have a trasnmitter on her back. She did not come back to the beach again though. Maybe tonight...

UPDATE:

Molly is swimming right off the beach in front of my office!!! I can hear her Argos messages being sent to the satellites on our police scanner tuned to the Argos frequency. When I first heard the signal about an hour ago, I freaked out and jumped back on the bike and went looking for her - no luck. She seems to be spending a lot of time near the surface fairly close to the beach. I can tell this by the amount of time between transmissions, the strength of the signal and because the transmitter only sends its data when out of the water. I wish I had a boat. Anybody want to donate a boat to the project??

lightning

The weather last night was pretty wild with crazy amounts of lightning!

Last night

Last night on Hutchinson Island Niki found a leatherback we tagged in 2003! She saw the turtle at around 1am as she tried to climb a scarp. She was unsuccessful and turned around and headed back to the water. We thought she would be back shortly and were correct. At about 3:30am she returned and laid a successful nest.

Kelly and I rode around Juno Beach all night with the salty air in our faces and did not see any turtles. Our first satellite tagged turtle is heading south now and we are expecting her to nest in the area in the next day or two.
Time for bed!

What is wrong with this picture??

Something is really out of place here in my office! In addition to the Trimble GPS unit, centrifuge, ultrafreezer, bags of coffee and other important items required for our work there is a baby doll! The doll is a remnant of an Aprils Fools prank played on Kelly. I was just cleaning the beach out of the office and thought it was an amusing photo...

Another good night!

Last night was another great one for the project. We deployed our fourth transmitter on a nesting leatherback. Kelly found "Musca" up near the Jupiter Reef Club at around 2am. Sandy and I rushed up to the location and we proceeded to fit her with a harness and her transmitter. Everything went very smoothly as she finished covering her nest and walked a long way back to the water. This is the second time we have seen Musca this year and we hope that she continues to use our beach this season. Ten days ago she nested up on Jupiter Beach in front of the Ocean Trails condominium which is only about 2 kilometers north.
More information about our satellite tagging work this season can be found here: 2005 GPS tracking Please check back in a few days as we post maps showing the movements of these awesome animals! More tonight...

no turtles

Not too much to report from the beach last night. Kelly, Niki, Sandy and I took turns patrolling the beach but did not find any nesting turtles. I think we are getting a bit spoiled by the numbers of turtles seen so far. This season has been amazing! We have encountered quite a few leatherbacks and there are already more nests recorded by today's date than the 2001 season - which was our largest! There is a graph of nest counts here: Graphs We are expecting a few turtles to return this week so keep checking in!

Cold, cold, cold

It was a cold night out there! The weather station at the Marinelife Center recorded a low temperature of 53 degrees but it felt a whole lot colder on the beach. The leatherbacks that nested last night must have been freezing. We encountered a tagged turtle here on Juno and Niki and Gwen found a turtle they tagged 10 days ago. "Stewart" was found at about 4am last night digging an egg chamber near the bluffs neighborhood. Since "Stewart" has been nesting on our survey area since 2001 we decided she would be a great candidate for satellite transmitter. Kelly and I fitted her with her transmitter and she crawled down the beach into the water. She seemed rather slow on the beach and it was probably due to the cold temperature. We now have three turtles equipped with transmitters and will be posting a few maps of their movements in the next few days.
The forecast is for another cold night. Maybe we will find Windy or Icy tonight?!

It was a pretty morning......

Kelly poses with turtle

It was a real quiet night out there but finally a turtle showed up just as we were getting ready to call it quits. She was tagged during the 2001 nesting season and is observed quite often near the Marinelife Center. We took a few measurements, checked her tags and Kelly posed for a quick picture.



Remember, flash photography is not allowed on the beach during turtle season.

Another turtle

Last night Kelly and I encountered a new turtle just as she was finishing up her nest near the Jupiter Reef Club. Interesting that she nested 10 meters from a nest that was laid 10 days ago. Maybe the same turtle?? A few folks from the Marinelife Center watched as she finished up and headed into the water. The turtle will be named "snowflake" I am not sure why Lance would admit that he wanted to be named snowflake as a young boy, but he did!

We received the first set of data from Molly and will post a map in a few days. After nesting she headed straight offshore and then veered north. All of the turtles we have tracked off our beach have taken a similar path. We'll see where she ends up!

pretty morning

Last night was cold,clear and turtle free! No turtles nested in either our survey area or up on Hutchinson Island. It was a cold one and Kelly, Sandy and I were bundled up when riding the ATV. Gloves, hats and jackets were required as we surveyed the beach until 6:30am. The sunrise was beautiful and I spent some time taking pictures in MacArthur Beach State Park this morning.

nothing

I could talk about how beautiful the night was (and it was!) but that is getting a bit old. What I really want to say is that we tagged a lot of new leatherbacks, but we did not. No turtles once again last night. There were quite a few on Hutchinson Island though. At last report there were at least three that showed up there! One of the goals of our study is to figure out why leatherbacks will nest on juno Beach for a while and then move to other beaches to nest. Why are they doing that?? Expecting a few turtles tonight....

Sorry

Sorry about the missing post this morning. There were no turtles this on Saturday night. I had thought that "Bunny - the easter turtle" was going to make an appearance but nothing. There have been a few turtles up on Hutchinson Island over the last few days. Kelly and I are back out here tonight and are heading out on the beach right now. I feel lucky!

She came back!

Her name is Musca and I think she was the turtle that was on the beach yesterday morning. I encountered a turtle just before sunrise up near the Jupiter Inlet this morning. She was covering her nest, so I checked her flipper tags and discovered she had none. I quickly tagged her and checked her PIT tag. Beeeep! She was a turtle encountered once during the 2003 season. More info. about Musca can be found here. I had a nice chat with some folks who had seen her from their condo and had ventured down at about 4:30am to take a look. I think we need to add a beachfront condo to the list of things that make our surveying lives easier!

Clenching her flippers tightly

Well, at least I hope she is! This morning on my final pass at 5am, I saw a leatherback. She slipped into into the water before I could get close to her. Bummed out that I missed one, I walked up the beach to find a "false crawl", a non nesting emergence!
Sometimes a leatherback will crawl out onto the beach and decide something is not quite right, turn around and head back to the water. Leatherbacks do not do this as often as other species, but I was glad she did. I knew she would be back on the beach somewhere soon. I spent another 2 hours riding around looking for her but had no luck. She will probably be back tonight if she is not on the beach somewhere right now. If you find her today, please call me!

A new turtle!

Matthew Simmons (Ecological Associates Inc) and Niki encountered a new turtle on Hutchinson Island last night at around 2am. She was a new turtle and Mathew named her Carla. Nothing to report down here on Juno. I thought it was going to be a good night for turtles and I even surveyed from inlet to inlet looking for one. Our brand new Honda ATV made the ride much nicer. Kelly is around tonight so we will probably find two or three turtles. She is kinda lucky that way!

Salty

Last night was warm and windy. Sounds nice, but driving an ATV for 7 hours on the beach is not easy when the wind is whipping in your face half the night. My clothes are encrusted with salt and I am still trying to get the sand and salt out of my eyes this morning.

No turtles nested last night here on the Juno Beach study area or up on south Hutchinson Island. Take a journey through the archives (over there on the right)The first turtle is usually spotted around this day each season. Maybe tonight I will catch the 5th!

Kelly arrives on Thursday and we will be announcing some cool stuff we are doing this season. Stay tuned....

no turtles

Not much to report from the beach last night. There was a lot of lightning offhore which entertained me as I rode along the beach. I thought I saw a turtle in the water, but it was probably just a "shadow turtle" One of the many things the mind makes up late at night alone on the beach.
The weather has changed into a more typical spring pattern. Rainy early in the evening and then cool, hazy,windy and humid the rest of the night.


Dean Bagley has reported 2 crawls to us in the last few days on Melbourne Beach. I guess the season has now begun!

changing every day

My new favorite bird is the Merlin (Falco columbarius) I was sitting on the beach this morning watching the sunrise and this little fighter jet of a bird came screaming right towards me. It flew past me and stunned a small sanderling about 50 feet behind me. The Merlin snatched the bird before it even knew what was coming. Amazing to watch but I feel bad for the little Sanderling. Nowadays my "most entertaining in the morning" bird list starts off like this; Merlin, Grey Catbird, and the Sanderling. Speaking of birds, the Kodak Birdcam is back online for the season. We need to figure out how to make the leatherback cam someday!


No turtles last night. I am exhausted and hope to be able to sleep today....

kilometers!

The computer on my GPS recorded 105.99 kilometers (65.89 miles) driven last night! It also recorded six hours and 43 minutes of time spent moving. So why did I miss another turtle??

Right now we are surveying the beach with a "skeleton crew" - Just me! In a few days we will have a full survey team riding the beach - Me and Kelly! I have been trying to cover the full survey area when possible. The Lake Worth Inlet to the Jupiter Inlet. is about 20 kilometers long and I am learning that it is probably too much for one person to cover.

I spotted a turtle just as she was entering the waves. I quickly got out a flashlight and checked her for tags before she entered the large swells. She wasn't tagged. She swam away before I could introduce myself. I hope that she returns so we can meet properly (and get a few measurements & tag her)

The nest from last night brings the total number of nests on Juno Beach to four. I just checked the database and was amazed to find that we have never had four turtles by this date. I thought that was really cool, but then ran another query and found out that we do not often record four nests for the entire month of March! Want to place bets on a record year? May be a bit early to predict that, but I feel good about it.

Lots of fun

Last night was a ton of fun. Started out in Ft. Lauderdale at the Interpol concert. It is a little wierd to wake up and go to a concert BEFORE work! Had a great time and then headed up here to Juno beach as fast as I could. I knew there would be turtles. A call to Rick who was working on Hutchinson confirmed the night was "turtly" as they had an untagged turtle on the beach at 9pm. Got up here by 1am and headed out on the beach. The waves were awesome and the beach had been cut in half since the night before. I headed north hoping not to find any tracks from missed turtles - nothing. A quick turn around at the Jupiter Inlet and I headed south. Near the Seminole golf course I saw the unmistakable dark smudge in the sand ahead of me. Yep, I missed a turtle. I was bummed that she had just left the beach and she had the biggest track I had ever seen in my life! I sat for a minute and then cranked up the bike and cruised south again.
Didn't have to go 100 meters before I found a turtle! AJ (click for more info about AJ) was just finishing up her nest and was getting ready to leave the beach. I checked her flipper and PIT tags, took some quick measurements and checked her out.

Leatherbacks are really cool and exciting to sit next to. I sat for a bit enjoying her company and we parted. I headed south again. Wonder where she went??

Quiet on the beach

It rained the entire day on thursday so I thought it might clear out by the time 9pm came around, but I was wrong. Spent the night in raingear riding up and down the beach in the rain by myself. I did not see a single person all night - which was nice.
No turtles were spotted.

Lots of birds on the beach huddled up against the wind and rain. I saw the first group of night herons that have arrived for the summer. They are fun to watch when they are hunting for crabs. Sometimes in the morning they will sit a wait for a crab to run down the beach after being spooked by our ATV. Smart birds!


Do Sanderlings EVER sleep?? They seem to eat 24 hours a day!

Good Morning

Well, the rain held off for most of the night. It is miserable out on the beach now and I am glad to be back in the office with my dog under my desk! No turtles on the Juno last night. Niki had a false crawl early this morning and they are still patrolling to see if she comes back to nest.

Last night I viewed a talk and had a nice dinner with Edie Widder at the Reef Grill here in Juno Beach. Dr. Widder is an expert on bioluminescence It was neat to learn more about the bioluminescent critters that our leatherbacks feed upon.

rain

Leatherback surveys are already tough on the body. Lack of sleep, windburned face, sand in the eyes, etc. But add a little rain to the mix and it is just plain miserable. Radar showing a lot of rain tonight. It is warm and windy though and I feel lucky!

Pretty night - but no turtles

Last nice was a very pleasant night to be out on the beach. It was warm, bright and the ocean was pretty. I really thought I was going to find a turtle. (maybe it was the six hours of sleep yesterday that put me in a good mood) I was so confident that I even called the Marinelife Center's new education director Leslie in the evening and told I her to be ready to help with a turtle when I found one. Leslie has not seen a leatherback turtle and I could use a bit of company out there.

Sorry Leslie! Maybe tonight?

Two turtle night

Monday night was a very good one for the project! This season Niki is working for Ecological Associates Inc. on Hutchinson Island (about 40 miles north of Juno) She is monitoring sea turtles for a several ongoing construction projects. The cool thing about her job is that she is working all night on a beach with similar numbers of nesting leatherbacks as Juno Beach. Before the season we contacted the guys who run the projects up there and asked if it would be OK if we tagged a few leatherbacks during the course of Niki's work. They said "great" and we applied for a permit to do the work with the State of Florida.


Well, we got the permit and sent Niki up with a tagging kit and sure enough she finds some leatherbacks - before me!! There were TWO turtles on the beach last night. Niki was able to tag one of them, but was unable to tag the second turtle. The leatherback dug an egg chamber and sat with her tail and flipper in the hole for about an hour, but no eggs. It is interesting that we have seen this before. We have now encountered three early season turtles do the exact same thing. Niki was unable to spend a lot of time with the turtle or tag her as she needed to check the rest of the beach.


Working on Hutchinson Island will allow us to collect a lot of great data this season and we are grateful to Erik Martin and Bob Ernest for allowing us to work up there!
This is going to be an exciting season! Keep checking in for more exciting things we have planned.....

The cycle of the beach at night

I was riding around last night thinking about all of the interesting things we see out here on the beach. People are very predictable...



When starting out each night, the beach is usually very crowded. Folks are sitting on large blankets or in fancy chairs. There is usually a bunch of young children running around and everyone is very nice.



At around 10pm the mood of the beach starts to change a bit. The familys are gone and the beach is taken over by lovers and walkers. People encountered are usually friendly and often wonder what I am doing out there. I have often been offered sandwiches, a cold beer, or even a nice glass of wine near an (illegal) fire.



By 2AM all of the bars have closed in Palm Beach County and I guess everyone comes to the beach! The smell of cigarettes and alcohol are abundant. These people are very friendly and will often chase the ATV like a crazed puppy!



A wierd thing happens by about 5am. Most everyone has gone to bed, but a new crowd takes over the beach. These are "the walkers". I imagine these guys wake up and wish to start the day with a little excersise and watch the sunrise. What I don't understand is why they seem so unhappy?? They are the most unfriendly people I encounter each night. They never stop me, wave, or even say good morning. Not a good way to start the morning or for me to end the night....

Another cold night

Last night was cold once again and the swell picked up a bit. No turtles nested on our survey area last night. When the tide was out, I was able to make it down to Singer Island for two passes. The beach is so different this season. I took a bunch of photos this morning and will post a few later tonight.

First night out

We had the first leatherback nest on our survey area on Friday morning so I decided to try my luck last night. The first full night out on the beach is never an easy one! It was really beautiful out there but it was really cold. I took a nap during the 4am hour (we have many names for this period!)
The beach is completely different than it has been in past seasons. The hurricanes that hit the coast north of us really changed the beach dramatically. We will post some images in a few days. I am not sure we will be able to survey our whole section of beach this season. We'll keep you posted.

Back out tonigh!

No leatherbacks to report

No turtle nests have been reported on Florida beaches at this time. Any day now....

The folks from Palm Beach County called me today to report a stranded leatherback. I drove down to Lantana ( about 15 miles south of our survey area) and was saddened to see a large 158cm dead male leatherback turtle. I bet he was on his way south for the season. No immediate cause of death could be identified.

A few days away!

Leatherback season officially starts on March 1st. I will be on the beach in the mornings looking for tracks from turtles that lay eggs during the night. I will probably start nightly patrols on the 12th or so!
I say it every year, but this season it really does look like one of our satellite tracked turtles is heading back to florida. They usually turn around but maybe...

Vheck out the most recent track of Beatirice here: Beatrice map

Check back soon!