niki1's blog

Just wanted to report a very cool finding from an hour ago. On my first pass up north I found a dead northern gannet (Morus bassanus). The bird had a large metal band on it's left thigh, partially embedded in its skin. Knowing how important it is to researchers to hear reports about their tagged animals, I recorded the tag number and typed it into the bird banding website (USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center). It returned some really awesome information! This adult gannet was tagged in 1988 in Labrador, Canada.

It just goes to show how much you can learn by paying attention to tags and

Last night was a rewarding night for me! Over the last few weeks of riding the beach at night, I haven't really encountered any turtles. I've been covering the north route, from the Marinelife Center to the Jupiter Inlet, and just haven't been lucky. This weekend, despite the horrible windy, wavy, salty weather, I really enjoyed my nights. On Saturday night, Sandy spotted two turtles on the south end, and I did get to see one (Lyra, first spotted in 2001!).

Last night, was pretty crazy. On my first run I came across a leatherback by the Jupiter Beach Resort; she was just crawling out of the water, which is such a cool thing to see, they look SO big! She turned out to be a turtle named Nashira, tagged in 2003 I think. But she needed new tags, so I worked her up and moved south down the beach where there was another turtle just north of the Jupiter Reef Club! This turtle was new and needed a full work up, metal tags, PIT tag, genetic sample, measurements, and metal scan (for any embedded longline hooks). I was ecstatic, since it has been a long time since I've gotten to tag and name a new turtle. I decided to call her Iris. She was a pretty turtle, hardly any marks on her, no chunks taken out of her flippers (sort of a rare thing to see such a good lookin' turt).

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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!

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 the

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.