Lonely Little Loggerhead

We still haven't seen a lot of activity from our last nest, but it is scratching around down there! I am so worried that the cold is getting to them. In the water, sea turtles will wash ashore 'cold stunned' at temps below 45 degrees. I'm not sure what the threshold is for hatchlings in the nest as sand holds the suns heat and keeps them a bit warmer than the air, but it's still been pretty chilly at night. That makes hatchlings sluggish!



This one little guy was hanging out at the sand surface when I arrived the other morning. He wasn't crawling around under the screen though -- there was a front flipper and half of his head above the sand, the rest of him was still buried underneath. After I removed the screen and waited a few minutes, he started to emerge fully. I did give him a little boost on his trip to the water since this was a relocated nest.



He was still a bit sluggish, even after warming in the rising sun. I gave him a quick dunk in the Gulf to see if that perked him up. As soon as he felt the water, he dashed for the sea. He just needed a reminder that that's his real home.

I feel pretty safe calling this hatchling a 'he'. We didn't measure the temperature of the eggs during development, but it's been pretty chilly since this nest was laid. Lower incubation temperatures yield more male hatchlings, so it's fairly reasonable to believe he's a he.



In addition to the cool temps, this particular nest was well washed in both Gustav and Ike. Frequent washings for several days can increase the humidity, remove or add extra sand (on this nest, it was added), change the incubation temperature and can, if it's washed enough, drown developing embryos or hatchlings in the nest. It's great to see this didn't happen with this nest. We don't know yet what the hatch percentage is, and it's likely to be low, but that's how mother nature works. If we'd left it in place, about 50 feet south of it's current location, it would have eroded out about three days after it was laid in the first of our tropical weather this year.

If you look in the above nest photo, you can see how much sand we had to dig out to get the nest back to it's natural depth. We had to do this three separate times -- after Gustav, after Ike and after a strange low pressure system about two weeks ago. Now I do know why I always have sand in my ears, between my toes and in my belly button. I'm sure going to miss this life!

Nest Assessments and Kemp's ID

Sally and I assessed the next to last loggerhead nest, Santa Rosa 8061, this morning. One hundred thirty-four out of 136 eggs showed no signs of development... That's a lot of hard work for a momma turtle with little discernible result.



Normally, I post lots of photos of my day at work, but that assessment was just no fun. I had to dig 136 eggs out of a two foot deep hole (Gustav and Ike had deposited lots of extra sand on the beach there) and open each egg to determine what happened. The eggs just looked infertile, but it was a depressing, messy job. I don't think I'll ever eat scrambled eggs again!



We do still have one loggerhead egg in a cooler. It still looked viable at the assessment, so we took it back to the office. Sally and I 'candled' the egg -- holding a bright flashlight under it while in a dark room -- to see the embryo inside. It looks a little small, but the shadow of the tiny turtle head was unmistakable. Hope the little guy will hatch in a few more days.



The state also asked us to mail samples from each of our reported Kemp's ridley nests from this season. They seem to think we can't identify the species! Luckily, when we assess nests, we do save at least one hatchling or embryo from each nest (if there's one that didn't survive) for a variety of reasons. They're stored in the freezer until we need them, and today we did. So, I had to find dry ice in Gulf Breeze, which is not an easy task. Eventually, I found some at Winn Dixie and packaged the little critters up for FedEx. It seems strange to me to be able to do that -- in the Caribbean, that would require all kinds of CITES permits and other red tape. Secretly though, I can't wait for the state to call us back and tell us we were right all along!



That leaves just one more nest for this season, Pensacola Beach 8201, which should hatch very soon. After that, my time here will be almost done! Hard to believe a year and a half could fly by so quickly. I'll miss the park tremendously, but I have much more to look forward to back home...



The last nest is another loggerhead... Can you see the difference between the two species (Kemp's are the last three images, the first two images are loggerheads)? I don't know why the state thinks we can't tell.

* update - We didn't have a sample from one of our Kemp's nests as there were no dead hatchlings or unhatched embryos, so we emailed the state photos of those hathclings instead (if you know me, you know I take way too many pictures!). We had an almost immediate species confirmation from the state... After they see the five hatchlings Mark and I mailed, maybe they'll be less skeptical next year!

Little Loggerheads at Perdido

At sunrise today, it was time to assess PK7201, a loggerhead nest that has been hatching over the last several days. We had to count eggshells, live hatchlings and embryos that didn't hatch, for one reason or another. There were three stragglers in the nest, ready to greet the world.



Since this was a nest we relocated about 100 feet north of where it was laid, we gave the turtles a lift to the approximate site of the original nest (though the area was reclaimed by the sea about 5 weeks ago... talk about erosion!), and set them out for their first swim.



Two of the three seemed to stick together...



one crawled in circles because it had sand in it's eyes!



Eventually, they all greeted the huge sea (which came complete with it's own shadow),



and took their first swim. How overwhelming that must be for a one ounce turtle-ette!