from the crow's nest

Ghost crab hole with dead puff fish close by. 

Sometimes it's fish, sometimes it's eels but we often see that the crabs have pulled some good eats close to home. The question is, however, do they pull the food over or do they dig a hole next to the food - or either way?

A very exhausted baby Loggerhead turtle still with its yolk attached. 

This little baby will go to a dark room at the park office to recover from today's trauma. When ready, the rangers will release the baby in the evening and watch it swim away.

Bucket holding unhatched eggs and baby turtles hatched too early. 

Empty egg casings - counted for scientific purposes! 

Hugh Fagen & Jim Wilson are collecting data from Loggerhead Turtle nest at Ft. DeSoto, FL  

The fire ants and the racoons were scavaging this nest that hatched yesterday. The rangers will dig up the nest looking for unhatched eggs and counting the empty shells. I believe this was nest #9 at Ft. DeSoto. It's been a bad year for nesting and that can probably be attributed to the bad red tides we've had this year.

Counting the hatched turtle eggs 

Here's a good article explaining Red Tide and Dead Zones in the Gulf. The author, Elizabeth Carlise, wrote about the northern Gulf of Mexico where the large rivers impact the marine life. We are now experiencing Dead Zones on the west coast of Florida and I can't help but wonder if the phosphate spraying they did last year during the hurricane threats.

The Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

A hybrid, Hybrid! Yes, maybe the costs outweigh the short term gas consumption costs but what about the long term???? This at least is a quick remedy for change and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Waiting for hydrogen-powered cars is a pipe dream.
Experimental Hybrid Cars Get Up to 250 Mpg

Yesterday Fred came home from his walk at Ft DeSoto telling stories about a group of manatees that were 10 feet off the beach. He said there were 12-14 just lolly gagging around!

Well, today Hugh, the park biologist, asked us if we had seen the manatees yesterday. So it wasn't just a tall tale, the story was substantiated. Hugh said he watched them in the early morning darkness and it was clear that a group of cowboys were having their fun with a female, if you know what I mean. At first he thought the female was dieing because the male(s) would come up to her and touch noses. But evidently it was simply part of the mating ritual and she wasn't at death's door.

Later, as we were finishing our walk, we spied movement in the water about 20 yards out. We watched closely and could see about 3-4 manatees moving down the beach at approximately 3 mph. Probably some "bad boys" looking for more good fun.