Beach

After dinner we went down to the beach to see if we had gotten any good shells washed up. Not really, but we did get a whelk egg case (mermaid's necklace ?), 2 starfish, and about 7 tires covered with barnacles.

whelk egg case (Mermaid's necklace)

Tires

Looks like a mermaid had fun decorating this...

Pretty Starfish

Hurricane

We came back home yesterday to see what damage Irene had done. It could have been worse, but it took the end of our pier, split a tree by the street in half, and got a few shingles.

Pier before

Pier after

Poor tree...

Double Shark Attack!

Calm down, not really sharks attacks.

Dad and I were at the beach and then a group of people saw a "shark" swimming in the water about six feet out. Then they told everyone to get out of the water. The "shark" was gone by then, anyway.

The second "shark attack" was in the sound. Mom and I were fishing on the pier. We and our neighbors on their pier saw a fin in the water. I ran up and told dad and Tyler to come down. We watched it a little longer and found out it was actually a dolphin once we saw it's blowhole.

Crabs, Shrimp, and a Stingray

       For the past two days, we've been using the cast net to catch shrimp. 60% were smaller ones, which we used for bait. The other 40% of jumbo shrimp were eaten.
       While I was practicing using the cast net, I let mom hold my fishing pole for me. Then after a few minutes she called out "I have a fish! It's heavy!". Dad came over to reel in the fish because it was so big and close to snapping the line. As it came closer, we saw someone else's tail thrashing around, a stingray's! We reeled it in and onto the dock with it's mouth facing up, pulled out it's hook, and it plopped into the water. I was too late to get my camera, though.
       Right after that we casted the fishing pole again and immediately caught a blue claw crab. It was too small, but it was nice and healthy and blue. I did get my camera for this one. You can see in the second picture that he held onto his shrimp the whole time, even though most of it fell off.

Stuck in the net

The shrimp is still in his claw.

You can see the blue on his claw.

New Crab

(Shilo?) being shy and hiding in her shell

I got a new crab to replace Patty and so Willy won't be lonely. I found out it's a girl because it has the two black dots next to it's 5th set of legs. She's very shy, so I was thinking of naming her Shilo. I'm also thinking about Shelby and Ginger. She was crawling around everywhere at the store, but she's scared of people. Her claws are bright red with some purple and she's really healthy. I would get a picture of her out of her shell, but she's too scared to come out when she's around me. This is the best I could do:

R.I.P. Patty

Patty died last night from PPS. PPS stands for Post Purchase Stress. For about a month after being purchased a hermit crab will feel stressed out and could lose arms, antennae, or eyestalks, or even die. Patty lost two legs.

So Willy won't feel stressed out from being lonely, I'm going to get another hermit crab Patty's size. You don't want to have two crabs of the same size or it could cause shell fights. Shell fights are pretty much just when a crab wants the shell another crab has. Patty couldn't have lost limbs and died because of a shell fight because Willy doesn't want a shell twice her size.

Before I get the new crab, I'm going to clean out the crabitat to get rid of the dead crab smell. Right now, sand from the beach is in the oven being sterilized.

Hermit Crabs

I got 2 hermit crabs two days ago. One was free when you bought the cage so I named it Willy after Free Willy. He's the smaller one with the native shell. The other one is Patty. Her cow-painted shell is too big on her. Every time I pick her up she almost falls out of her shell. Patty won't change shells even though I gave her a new one.

Loggerhead Turtle Nesting

A few weeks ago when I went to the beach to see the sunrise in the morning, this loggerhead turtle was found nesting. When the turtle is laying the eggs she goes into almost a trance and is completely still. Adult loggerhead turtles are about 3-4 feet long and leatherbacks are about 6 feet.

Laying eggs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvNdDuO91hc&feature=related
Covering nest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1V56fQfCTc&feature=related
Crawling to ocean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k_iRThfNa0

Best Loggerhead Turtle Nest Ever!

The nest after with puts the egg shells back in.

Last week I went down to the beach for a loggerhead nest survey. It ended up being close to claiming the title of the biggest nest ever for that stretch of beach (the record was 161 but this nest had 156). Instead it turned out to be the best condition of a turtle nest ever, with 142 hatched eggs, 14 unhatched, and no pips, dead turtles, or live turtles stuck down in the hole.

Leatherback Turtles

A few days ago I went down to the beach and saw 2 baby leatherback turtles emerge from their nest (shown below). After they had quickly swum to the ocean, the turtle patrol dug up the nest where the rest of the turtles had hatched 4 days ago. They kept digging until an arm length hole had been formed and at that point we had found:

• 65 hatched eggs (the 65 turtles that had hatched 4 days ago)
• 3 live hatchlings in nest (3 live turtles we found while digging and watched slowly swim to the ocean)
• 12 dead hatchlings (the turtles that had gotten out of their shells but then died or were killed))
• 0 live pipped (what would be a turtle still coming out of it's shell)
• 4 dead pipped (died half way out of it's shell)
• 5 whole (the 2 turtles found emerging at first + the 3 live hatchlings = 5 whole)
• 8 damaged (turtles that never made it out of the shell)

50 hatchlings emerged

82 total eggs