It has been another quiet week on the island with only a few false crawls and no new nests to report. We are still at a total number of 19!
We have started our patrols an hour earlier, around 8pm, to try and use what’s left of the daylight. This past week we have been using that time to dig out a few of our nests that got buried in sand from the wind. The weather has really picked up in these extra hot end-of-summer months! Basically we would just dig the cage out, take sand off the top of the nest, and place the cage back on top. This is so that we can make sure our hatchlings are getting all the oxygen they need to make their greatly anticipated first appearance!
Incubation for the eggs is about 50-70 days, and our first 6 nests have met that mark! Here is the list of those nests and what day they are on as of today (7/31/22). Dipper: nest #1, day 62. Cassi: nest #2, day 61. Ursa: nest #3, day 61. Andy: nest #4, day 59. Saturn: nest #5, day 57. Lastly we have Tripley: nest #6, who is on day 53. We have been watching them every night waiting for a sign that they are about to hatch. Usually, a few nights before the boil, the sand on top of the nest will dip down a few inches. Let me explain what I mean…
Example image of a boil.
You may have noticed I used the term “boil” to describe the hatching process. This is because when the tiny turtles are ready to hatch out, they use their egg tooth to rip open their shell and do so underneath the sand. This movement creates a scene that resembles a pot of boiling water. That is how the phrase came to be! Don’t worry, no one is actually boiling turtles! Another, interesting fact about the hatchlings is that their gender is determined by how warm or cool the sand is. This is called “Temperature-Dependent Sex Determination”. Higher temperatures produce more females and lower temperatures produce more males. The easy way to remember this is with the phrase “hot chicks and cool dudes”! TSD applies to some other reptiles too, such as alligators and crocodiles. This is another reason why warming trends due to climate change can be concerning. We would see a higher ratio of females than males which could affect genetic diversity.
Once the little ones are ready, they will dig their way out of about 1 foot of sand and head down the beach. They will follow the downward slope towards the water, with the moon and stars guiding them. Once they get to the ocean, the turtles will swim continuously until they reach the Sargasso Sea. This is where they will grow to about the size of a dinner plate and feed on Sargassum seaweed until they reach their pelagic or open ocean phase.. This period of time is often known as the “Lost Years” because it is hard to track movements of such young turtles and we do not see much of them.
Thank you for reading this week’s blog and we hope to see you next week with news of hatchlings!
This past week we had 3 nests, bringing us up to a total of 19 nests so far this season. At 11:00PM on Sunday July 17th, we had returner Lyra from nest #13 come back to Bear Island to lay nest #17. She laid 142 eggs this time around and her nest was safely relocated. We were actually anticipating her return. She had false crawled around 11:25PM the night before and had another false crawl at 9:38PM on Sunday before finally laying her second nest on our island. Hopefully she’ll return again before the seasons over!
Sydney measuring the width of Lyra’s carapace
Nest 18 was laid at 3:14AM on Monday July 18th by a new mother. She had no previous tags so she was tagged before heading back to the ocean. We named this new turtle Rhea after Saturn’s second largest moon. The newbie had 117 eggs, a healthy number for a first nest! Hopefully she has a new favorite island and return to Bear Beach to have future nests.
Rhea camouflaging her nest by flicking sand around with her front flippers
Wednesday night/ Thursday morning we saw the return of Cassi our mother from nests #2 and #16. Throughout the night Cassi false crawled multiple times trying to find the perfect spot to lay her third nest of the season. We saw her and confirmed she had two false crawls during the night after scanning her pit tag, but we had two other false crawls where we did not see the turtle. Considering all the false crawls were in close proximity to one another, we think there’s a high likelihood all 4 false crawls were Cassi. At 4:30AM Thursday morning, she finally decided on a spot just passed the big dune and laid 120 eggs. We successfully relocated the nest just before the sun started to rise. Loggerheads typically lay 3-5 nests during their nesting season, so we might see Cassi again this year or in a few years. Either way we hope to see her return to Bear Island!
Cassi finally laying her nest after a long long night of false crawls
In addition to the laying of a new generation of sea turtles, sadly we also saw the tragic loss of an adult loggerhead this week. On Monday July 19, a Loggerhead washed up on the beach with several shark bites taken out of the carapace and the flippers. Sharks are the main predator (besides humans) of adult sea turtles and usually only a few bites out a sea turtle. Tiger sharks, in particular, are known for eating sea turtles. Their method is to attack the prey from below. This way, they can easily access the fleshy parts of the turtle. In addition, tiger sharks have, over time, evolved and developed. Tiger sharks may take a bite out of a sea turtle for survival, however, the biggest predator to sea turtles is humans. Over-harvesting, hunting, poaching eggs, habitat destruction and pollution are some of the many human actions affecting turtle populations worldwide. One simple way to help reduce our threat to sea turtles is to reduce the risk of marine debris, which sea turtles and other marine life are exposed to. Please pick up after yourself when your are at the beach and leave no trace. We want our beaches to be happy and healthy just like our turtles. We can’t prevent a shark attack, but we can prevent the threat of marine debris.
The Loggerhead was buried and laid to rest on the island
On a happier note, this week we have also started to monitor our first nests of the season in anticipation of a boil. Sea turtles nests typically incubate for about 50-70 days, depending how warm the season is. We hit day 50 for nests 1, 2, 3, and 4 this week. It is called a boil because the turtles come out of the sand so quickly, and in such a large number, it looks like the sand is boiling. A few days before the boil, a divot will form in the sand indicating activity below. So far, we’ve seen no activity, but flippers crossed we’ll see a boil next week!
The board we use to keep track of all nest data
Tune in next week in hopes of a boil update and to learn more about the hatching process!
This week on our regularly scheduled turtle program, there isn’t much to report. It’s been a slow week for both the turtles and the interns at Bear Island with only one false crawl to show for and unfortunately, no new nest. This week’s false crawl happened on July 14th at 12:05am. This Turtle was brand new t our beach and had no previous tags so we think she may be a new mother. We thought she was going to lay a nest as she came pretty far up the beach and picked out a nice spot on the dunes, but after a few minutes she decided today wasn’t her day. We had just enough time to pit tag her before she went back into the ocean. We decided to name this Turtle Orion, Ryan for short. Hopefully, she will return to our beach to lay a nest! Flippers crossed! As she was heading back into the ocean, we noticed she had a healed injury on the back of her carapace. We believe this turtle was struck by a propeller of a boat and are very glad to see that it healed properly. If you look closely at the image below, you can see the damage on the left side of her carapace.
Image of a healed injury on Orion’s carapace.Orion saying hello
“Mine! Mine! Mine!” – Seagulls in Finding Nemo
We wanted to take some time this week and talk about some common predators found on Bear island that like to come after our precious turtles. Did you know that more than 90% of hatchlings are eatten by predators? This section was written with the help of our 2022 enviornmental intern Kylee Johnson. Thanks Kylee!
Seagulls – Seagulls, as well as many other birds, are known as the most common predator of baby sea turtles. This predator likes to attack the baby sea turtles as they make their way back into the ocean. Flocks of seagulls will keep watch of sea turtle nest and can easily devisate a nest of 100 hatchlings as they try to crawl out. Vultures are also able to devistate a whole group of sea turtles as they can catch them from land and the surface of the water. Unfortunally for our tutles it is the survival of the fittest as only 1 in 1000 hatchlings make it to adult hood. This is certanly the darkest side of mother nature.
Coyotes – There are currently two adult coyotes here on Bear Island with a litter of puppies. Once the puppies reach adult hood the paraents will chase them off the island so duing the fall and winter there are only two Coyotes on the island. Coyotes are known to eat bird and turtle eggs and if they smell a nest nearby will attempt to dig in the sand in order to find them. This is the main predator that our turtle cages are ment to keep away from the nest. The metal cage is crafted out of chiken wire and is designed to have about a 6-10 inch flap on all sides of the cage to prevent the Coyotes from digging under it to reach the eggs. We interns have made a fair share of these cages and can confirm they are very poky and scratchy. I would keep my paws off of it if I were a Coyote.
Turtle CageTurtle Cage Flap
Ghost Crabs – Ghost crabs will only come out of the burrows during the night or on coudly days. If they happen to come across a sea turtle nest that has begun to boil (meaning that the babies have hatched and are trying to crawl their way out of the sand forming a cavity) or if the baby turtle is making their way back to the ocean, the ghost crabs will snatch them up for a midnight snack. Ghost crabs are currently going through an evolutionary change as they transition from water to land. They mostly live on land but must head to the ocean to wet their gills once a day. When driving at night, we see many of these Ghost crabs crawling around the beach and some are even as big as the size of our hands! They are very dumb as they attempt suicide by running infront of our truck as we are driving. They also like to fight the truck, running back and forth with their claws in the air as we approach them. I would not bet money on them.
Attack of the Ghost Crab
With the slowness of this week it is important to remind ourselves of why we are doing what we do and what an incredible opportinuty it is for us to be here on Bear Island. We are so very thankful for those who tune in each week to learn more about these big lovable creatures. As our beloved friend Dory once said, all we have to do is just keep swiming!
Now that it is the middle of July, many of the bird nests on Bear Island have hatched! The baby birds are very cute and fun to see as they learn to walk. The parents are very protective of the babies, so please keep a respectful distance and follow posted signage.
American Oystercatchers are one of the most unique shorebirds we see on Bear Island, easily identified by their bright orange bill and black head. We only had one successful nest at Bear Island this year that I was lucky to see hatch on July 4th! Olivia and Oscar hatched two baby Oystercatchers which you can enjoy pictures of below, including some images through the spotting scope. (Baby bird name suggestions welcome!)
Left: Oystercatcher babies on the sand. Right: One Oystercatcher chick walking.
Oystercatchers start breeding at about 3 years old and sometimes mate for life. Both parents create scrapes in the sand to lay their eggs, sometimes adding shells or rocks to line the nest. They incubate the eggs for 24 to 28 days. When the chicks hatch, the parents continue feeding them for two months while they are learning to feed themselves, and then the baby birds learn to fly at about 5 weeks.
Left and Right: Two Oystercatcher chicks being supervised by the parent
In addition to the Oystercatchers, I have observed several Wilson’s plovers nests hatch this season, beginning with the first nest on June 21st. We have had three that I observed hatch and two more nests that likely hatched when unobserved based on the timing. Wilson’s plovers were found behind dunes and in mudflat areas.
Left: Wilson’s plover chick shortly after birth. Right: Wilson’s plover chick with two eggs.
During the breeding season, the male creates several scrapes in the sand to present to the female to choose one to become a nest. They also present themselves to the female by tapping their feet and spreading their tail. After the female lays her nest, the eggs incubate for 23 to 25 days before hatching. Like the other shorebird species, the babies move away from the nest quickly when they can walk to hide until they can fly around 21 days. The babies are spotted brown in coloration and huddle together until they can move from the nest.
Two Wilson’s plover chicks hiding in dune vegetation.
Baby least terns were the most common chicks that hatched on Bear Island this summer. They are a fluffy and white to beige in color, which makes them difficult to see against the sand. I observed 12 hatched nests with chicks and suspect that an additional 11 likely hatched when unobserved. The first chicks were found early in the summer at nest number 1 on June 2nd.
Compilation of least tern chick photographs
Least terns start breeding at 2 to 3 years. Males present a fish to female during mating. They only have one mate per season. Both males and females make scrapes in the sand, and the female picks the scrape to become the nest. The mom lays her first eggs about 2 to 3 weeks after arriving to the breeding area. The pair may re-nest if a nest is lost due to predation, which I believe we have seen at Hammocks Beach. After chick is born, they usually move from the nest quickly to hide and travel as much as 200 feet away. The parents raise the chicks in a group for safety. Once they have their first flight, leave the colony area after about three weeks. Adult least terns can live up to about 24 years old.
Two least tern chicks seen through spotting scope
Currently there are only three remaining least tern nests out of 82 total shorebird nests. All other nests have either hatched or been lost to predators. Despite the challenges the birds are facing, it is nice to see some successful nests this summer. Happy flying! Good luck out there guys!
Written by Sarah Kinicki, Shorebird Intern
References:
“Least Tern” Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. http://www.maine.gov
Including the 4th of July festivities, this week was anything but boring! Saturday started the week early with a false crawl at 9:40. Two campers actually saw the turtle and alerted us, but we missed her. When a camper sees a turtle (which does happen frequently) they call our supervisor, and she lets us know. We greatly appreciate when campers do this because it makes our jobs just a little bit easier. Even though we missed the turtle, this false crawl was the beginning of one of our busiest weeks yet.
Patrol started a little earlier on Sunday and Monday so that we could catch some fireworks. Going out a bit earlier meant we had time to sit and really take in the view that we get each night. While rewarding, this job can be a bit mundane. The days when we drive up and down the beach and find nothing for the 9-hour patrol can be, well, boring. It can be hard to live in the moment when you are sitting in a hot truck trying to take a nap while bugs fly around. However, as we sat and watched the fireworks from the truck, we had time to realize that people dream of having our job. We are so lucky that we have to opportunity to have the most beautiful office and rewarding work. We realized that money comes and goes, but we will never be in our 20’s watching fireworks on the beach patrolling for sea turtles again. With the sappiness behind us, Sunday did bring us two false crawls. We did not see the first was at 11pm and, the second early Monday morning at 2:30am. The false crawl at 2:30 seemed promising as she looked as if she was about to start digging, but she ended up heading back to the water.
Fireworks!!!!
Monday the 4th we were fueled by a feast provided by the Friends of Hammocks Beach, so the singular false crawl was no problem. She was headed back to the ocean when we found her so there was not much we could do, but all these false crawls were just preparing us for Tuesday & Wednesday.
Destini, Syd and Megan with “park issued” rain gear and 4th of July feast
“I don’t like sand”- Anakin Skywalker
This past week, storms have taken a toll on our patrol. From lightning, heavy rain, and sand we have braved all the elements for the turtles (we are always safe, especially with lightning). Tuesday night and Wednesday morning the element of choice was sand. We are no strangers to sand, but on this patrol, sand was blown in every direction. Tuesday early on we had a false crawl that eventually returned to be lucky nest 13! Named Lyra, she was a new turtle for us this year but visited Bear Island in 2020. Nests 14 and 15 happened within 10 minutes of each other. While looking for a relocation spot for nest 14, Megan came across another turtle laying. Rachel, Destini, and Megan were all on patrol that night and ended up going to wake Syd up because we needed all hands-on deck for dueling nests. Sagittarius (Terri) laid 113 eggs and had not been pit tagged yet. We believe she might be a new mom! Nest 15 was a familiar face, Vega laid 143 eggs and this nest was her third time THIS SEASON laying on Bear Island.
Vega’s side eye
With the fun of 3 turtles in one night over, the rest of the week still gave us a run for our money. Tripley returned on Thursday night for an interesting false crawl. She went extremely high on a dune and turned around to find a new spot more than once. Just her crawl lasted an hour, and she never even started digging. Finally, on Friday there were 2 false crawls and… nest 16!! Returner Cassi laid 122 eggs and was our earliest nester this season, coming up at 4:30AM.
Tripley: post insane false crawl
An eventful week filled with fireworks, food, and of course turtles 🙂
Least tern breeding area on Bear Inlet with bird sign
This summer on Bear Island we have two main least tern breeding colonies, one at Bogue Inlet and one at Bear Inlet. The least terns can be seen nesting together in large groups, while the Wilson’s plovers tend to nest nearby behind the dunes. The least tern colonies can be quite loud with many birds flying to and from the water looking for fish. The birds may shriek in warning or defecate on someone if they get too close to the nest, so stay behind the white bird signs.
Least tern nest #47 with one egg
I started counting and monitoring the bird nests at the beginning of June. For each nest, I put a wooden stake with a nest number about three feet from the nest. The bird nests can be very difficult to find as they blend in well with the sand. Also, unlike a songbird nest that would have twigs wrapped together, the shorebird species of Bear Island just create a small depression in the sand to lay their eggs. The best way to find a nest is to watch the birds fly and see the mother bird sitting on her nest through binoculars or a spotting scope.
Least tern mother sitting on her nestAmerican Oystercatcher mother known as Olivia sitting on her nest
The least tern and Wilson’s plover eggs can also look very similar. Overall, the least tern eggs are smaller and lighter in color, and usually have only 1 to 2 eggs in a nest. The Wilson’s plover eggs are larger and darker in color with darker speckles and can be found with up to 3 eggs in a nest. The American Oystercatcher eggs are quite large and distinctive, about the size of chicken eggs.
Least tern nestWilson’s plover nestAmerican Oystercatcher nest
Bear Inlet has had the larger colony of 65 least tern nests this summer. Four Wilson’s nests have been found near the least tern colony, particularly behind the dunes in mudflat areas. Bogue Inlet had a much smaller colony of five least tern nest and three Wilson’s nests by the dunes. Only one successful American Oystercatcher nest was observed this summer within the least tern colony at Bear Inlet. (There was an earlier nest observed on Bogue Inlet, but it was likely predated very early in the summer).
When a Wilson’s plover nest is found, I build a cage around it with wire fencing to deter predators on the island, including seagulls and coyotes. The birds are small enough to fit in between the wires to get to their nest. Least terns and Oystercatchers are too large to fit through the fencing, so I could not put a cage around their nests.
Cage around Wilson’s plover nest
After recording the presence of a nest for the first time, assigning the nest a number, and recording the GPS location, I follow-up over time to check on the presence of the nest to see whether it hatches or is lost to predation. Stay tuned for the next blog post where I will provide an update on the predation issues at the park and share some baby bird photos!
Welcome to our fourth blog post this summer! If you’ve been following along, you’ll know just how busy we have been in the past weeks. But, this week has been quite a change of pace with only one new nest. So we can take this opportunity to tell you guys a little more about the specifics of what we do every night. Let’s dive in!
Our week started with some excitement on Monday, when we found a new nest. Unfortunately, we missed the turtle as they seem to be coming up so early (sometimes before it’s even completely dark)! We were doing our first sweep of the beach at 9pm and came across the tracks. At first, we had thought she was still laying because it looked like there was only one set of tracks. Which means the turtle has come out of the water but hadn’t gone back yet. As we pulled up, we saw that the highest point of the tracks, also known as the apex, was completely back into the dune. This was really good news because that means if she had laid, it would be in the perfect spot. You go girl! But as we approached the nesting site, there was no turtle to be seen. After looking around to make sure she wasn’t in the dunes, we concluded that she must have gone back in exactly the same path as she came up in! Since this nest didn’t have to be relocated, we don’t know how many eggs she laid. But, it looked to be perfectly healthy!
Destini with Jane Doe’s nest.
Other than that, there was a false crawl yesterday (Friday night). She was spotted by some of our campers around 8:15pm which is 45 minutes before our patrol starts. We are starting to think that it may be a good idea for us to do a sweep earlier on so we can catch some of these events before they are over!
A Day… Or Rather a Night In The Life of a Sea Turtle Intern
Take a step into our shoes as we walk you through a night of patrol! Although, most of the time we ditch the shoes. We start around 8:45pm by grabbing our snacks and making sure we have everything we need. This list includes LOTS of bug spray, water, headlamps, and our rain jackets. Our turtle supplies consist of calipers, soft measuring tape, PIT tags, metal flipper tags, PIT tag scanner, GPS, activity forms, egg sample vials, relocation bins, a cage to cover the nests, a nest sign, a shovel, post-hole diggers, and some other “just-in-case” items. It sounds like a lot but most of it is kept together in our trusty turtle box!
Now, you may be wondering… “What the heck is a PIT tag scanner?!”. Don’t worry! We will walk you through our process. We hop into the truck and start patrol at 9pm. First we do a full sweep keeping our eyes peeled for tracks or trash that needs to be picked up. A full sweep just means that we drive the whole beach. After that, we wait for 30-40 minutes each time we drive from one end to the other. One of the reasons we do this is to reduce the amount of activity on the beach (including our big, scary truck with beady red eyes) so that the turtles feel more inclined to come ashore. We continue this pattern until break at 1am which is when we do a full sweep again before going out and when we come back in. Now, for the part that everybody is waiting for. What do we do if and when the turtles appear? Let’s break it down into steps!
Step 1: Determine which phase the mother is in. Is she nesting? Is she digging? Or maybe she is still crawling up and trying to decide if she likes our beach. Once we know what she is doing we plan accordingly. Ideally, we want to wait to approach her until she has begun laying the eggs. That way she is in what we call a “trance” and the interactions we have won’t bother her too badly.
Step 2: While she is in her trance, we put on our gloves and begin to get some measurements. There are many different types that are needed. We need straight measurements of the carapace (shell) which is done with the calipers and we also take curved measurements which is done with the soft measuring tape so it can go over the barnacles and bumps. We take both the length and width, and the length is taken from notch to notch and notch to tip.
Measurement with the use of calipers.
Step 3: Next up we have tags. Here comes the PIT tag scanner you asked about earlier! First we want to make sure we aren’t tagging our sweet turtle more than once so we take our scanner and run it along her neck, shoulders, and flippers to see if a PIT tag number comes up from a previous tagging. If not, we will take our syringe with the tag inside and place it into her muscular shoulder tissue, recording the number on our activity sheet. Flipper tags are similar to a cow’s ear tags and are placed on both the left front flipper and right front flipper.
This is what flipper tags look like on a green sea turtle!
Step 4: Now for the nest! If the nest is in an acceptable spot, relocation isn’t necessary. But, it really has to be up in the dunes to avoid king tides and storm surges. Even just a couple of feet can help immensely! Once the turtle has gone back to the water, we start to dig for the nest. It is important to be careful because the eggs are still a soft like skin texture once they are first laid. To relocate, we place the eggs in the relocation bins along with some sand and move them back to our new replicated spot. Counting along the way, we place the eggs in the opposite order that we took them out. This is so that we can copy the original nest as close as possible. We take our egg shell DNA sample as well.
Step 5: Wrapping it up. After relocation, we cover the nest back up with a cage on top to keep out predators. Mostly this means coyotes but even sometimes the crabs can pose a threat. We take a GPS location including latitude and longitude of the original nest and the new one, and then we place a sign and pack up our tools. All that’s left is to make sure we have our forms filled out and we continue with patrol.
Now you are an expert!!
I hope you guys enjoyed learning all about the process in this week’s blog! We can’t wait to see you next week hopefully with some new nests and stories. Have a great weekend and Happy Fourth of July!
Hammocks Beach Interns 