Change of Seasons

Everything seems to be on the move.  Our hummingbirds seem to have moved on, and, in the mornings doing the last of the Turtle Patrols, the skies over the river between Cumberland and Amelia have been filled with endless flocks of birds heading Southwest. 

Also fluttering across Cumberland Sound are the Monarch Butterflies as they fly relentlessly Southward, effortlessly floating on the breeze and air currents.

This very large Moon Jelly looks like the beach has been wrapped up with a big pink bow.

Another one looks like a full moon rising between two great "beach trees" in the forest.

Sometimes an odd color will catch your eye, especially when it is out of place.  This vivid green broccoli stalk contrasted with the earth tones of the beach world.  Often I find whole apples, onions (sometimes a whole sack), and you wonder just how that happened and who lost their food stash out there.  The other day I found a full gallon of milk which had not even been opened washed in upon the beach.

My last couple of weeks of patrol, I began to see the Horseshoe Crabs starting their Fall nesting.  I probably counted about 50 nests and caught this one trying to find her way back to the water.

After I redeposited her in the river she happily swam away.  Funny critters they are.  So primitive.

The copper color and the shape of these links of the old vintage copper necklace reminded me of the Horseshoe Crab.  It's a reminder that the holiday season is closing in fast as I choose to show off one of my favorite sets of Renoir of California collected from the '40's and 50's in "The Islander" magazine's Gift Section.  This particular set is very hard to find.  Maybe someone who has a very small wrist will find this underneath their tree come December.

Continuing to work on the Koi Pond.  Little turtle has been changed as it seemed to be the wrong perspective for the view of the pond.

Although I won't miss waking at 6:15 am for Turtle Patrol, once awake, I will miss these beautiful sunrises I have been catching lately.  What I will have to concentrate on now is not missing the sunsets.

Sometimes one gets to sit and witness an unusual event in nature.  This was one of those times.  The tall tower in the edge of the river is always a favorite of the Osprey's for sitting and hanging out.  Always only one at a time will be there.  As I was riding up the beach I watched as one lit on the top.  But this time something was different.

Two Ospreys seemed to want the same perch and began playing a tag team game taking turns.  There was no real confrontation.  One would head for it and the other would vacate.

The displaced one seemed to be looking around and saying "what the heck just happened here"?

This dueling went on for quite a while as I just sat and watched knowing that I was getting to witness a rare thing.

One after the other lit as they played their King of the Hill game.  The changing of the guard happened over and over until I finally had to get on with my day.

The painting continues to change as I have laid in some basic shapes for the new turtle positions and cleaned all the masking agent off the painting.  I have begun to put the colors into the white areas.  The reason I preserved the white of the undercoat was partially to try something I hadn't tried to see if it would work on canvas.  I knew it would work on paper.  I don't really like how white paint dulls the acrylic colors so I am attempteing to try to use the colors like I do in watercolor letting the white of the surface influence the lightness of colors, giving it a brillance not possible by mixing.  I added the clear acrylic "medium" along with some water to the paint to make it more transparent.  I can't help letting that watercolor background creep into my acrylics.  I started to read a book on working with acrylics early on when I was first starting to work on canvas, and the first words out of the author's pen was to not use acrylics like it was another kind of paint medium.  I immediately gave the book to the first artist who walked into my studio and headed out to find my own way.

We had a workshop a week ago.  I had advertised our beautiful Fall weather;  what do I get for the whole three days but a mean Nor'easter.  The wind, fircely blowing sand, and rain prevented any beach access the whole time.  Of course we could have called it a Spa workshop with natural sand dermabrasions and charged lots more.  Surf was about 12 feet high, and with Full Moon and Fall High Tides the water was as high as I have seen it.  We had a lot of beach erosion.

Of course for us to get this kind of weather is exciting to residents of the island, who are used to the norm being nice surf and bright sun-shiny days with maybe a rain shower in the afternoon, but not so much when you only have a few days at that beach and they all turn out like this.  This was the humbling surf that lets you know how small and insignificant you are.  It was also the Sea Turtle Nest destroying surf and that is just what it did.  It signaled the end of what was left of the Sea Turtle Season 2011 erasing any that were left.

After the workshop-ee's had mostly left, except for two gals who had opted to stay a couple of extra days, the winds died down to a pleasant strong breeze, but the surf was still feeling the effects of the days prior and was still churning.  A good day for beachcombing; but alas I was too busy to be able to do much.  I needed to prepare to head out to Tennessee in two days.

I saw the Monarchs fluttering around the beach dunes looking for some flowers to replenish their reserves.  This one is sipping from a tiny Stinging Nettle blossom.  One of my friends, and a very good fisherman, Charlie, told me he had fished the day before in the strong wind and surf from the pier.  He had caught loads of Catfish.  He also had seen bunches of the migrating Monarchs clinging to the plants and riding out the storm.

The beach is such an interesting place after a storm, and I was having withdrawals knowing I would not be able to take advantage of it this time.  I watched from the pier longing for a little more time.  I would allow a few minutes for doing my last official Sea Turtle Patrol for the season on foot.  The water had been way too high that morning to ride the beach.  The two remaining nests could be checked by walking in easier.  I checked the beach at the river first to verify that our nest there was indeed gone.  Then I checked the Green Turtle nest on the south end of the beach by using friends, the Clark's, beach walkover to shorten the walk time to reach it.  That nest appeared to be gone also with the all the roots of the plants behind the nests location washed so that only the roots were left clinging to what beach had been left.

From the pier, we watched the rough surf as it pounded the jetty and tossed the spray into the air, misting in the breeze.  I was giving a tour of the State Park to the two girls who had stayed over, since they did not have a car.

Not a day for fishing off the top of this jetty.

One of the Ospreys had managed to make a good catch in the rough water though.

This very large gull helped me survey the area, either a Herring Gull or an immature Black Backed Gull, I'm just not very good on my gulls.  It was larger then the usual I know that much.

A different color of green is in the Prickly Pear Cactus as its fruit ripens with its pinks and yellow greens, a very pretty combination of almost complimentary colors.  I have not eaten this Prickly Pear fruit but do know that it is edible.

I took my guests to Old Town as the last part of the tour and found myself in a garden of Monarchs.  I guess the days of the storm had left them in need of the sweet nectar they were finding on this patch of Spanish Needle and the other flowers.  They were everywhere.  I had not seen this many Monarchs in one place before.

The Lantana on the edge of the old Spanish Plaza was also filled with them.  I just went to Ace Hardware and bought one of these plants today.  I am reverting back to what I first started with when I moved here.  Lantana is a semi-wild plant here in Florida which the butterflies love.  Very hardy and comes in such a variety of colors that I have decided to replant it in the flower bed at my back patio, and also will leave some of the Spanish Needle that grows wild in my backyard.  I had originally planted Lantana in that bed when I moved here, but it did so well that I thought it was going to get out of control there and moved it somewhere else.  After this summers fight with the dry weather I am ready for a hardy thriving plant.  It is a real attraction for feeding my Flutterbys, as Bruce calls them.

Using the turtle nest as an excuse I allowed myself about 30 minutes to beachcomb, after I dropped off my charges who were more interested in shopping downtown.  After a storm like this you never know what you will find.  I found a nice fossilized vertebrae of some sort on the river and some really beautiful Pen Shells and many, many other shells in my brief walk.  I determined that the Green nest was indeed gone.

The iridescent inside of this Pen Shell was so beautiful as it caught the sun's rays on it.  I had to take this one home, and used it as a basket in which to carry my collection of other sea treasures.

The bubbles were a nice backdrop for this sweet little beach bird who seemed to just stand his ground as I cautiously moved toward him.

My small collection of beach treasures.  The vertebrae, several Sand Dollars of varying size and shades of lavendar, (all dead ones by the way), a beautiful small Deep Sea Scallop Shell and a pretty white clam-like shell.  What girl needs diamonds and gold when they have this kind of treasure to bring home?    The signs of Fall are around us as we are sleeping with the windows open and the A/C off.  We have brief periods when we are reminded it will get colder but we are loving sitting and walking near the beach without sweating.  Its what we say we moved to Florida for; the nice long Falls and Springs.  Lets hope that the Monarch's will leave me some treasures on my Butterfly Weed as they did last year.

When the Big Boys (and Girl) Came to Town (sea turtles that is)

Once again the Georgia Sea Turtle Center has gifted us with a very special event, the release of some beautiful "rehabbed" Sea Turtles.  Thankfully I returned from Tennessee in time to see this.  These turtles were found in Florida waters, and therefore must be released into Florida, although a few strong swimming strokes and they could easily be back in Georgia.

Our work here is so involved with the hatchlings that sometimes we have to be reminded that these little guys do grow up, and rather quickly that first year.  The first and smallest was Duval, a juvenile Green Turtle, so named because it was found in Duval County down in the Jacksonville area.  When found, Duval had been weak, but after receiving treatment, is now well enough to go back into the sea.  It is important to get them back into the water before the water temperatures get any colder.

There was quite a crowd of the curious, and supporters of the Sea Turtle work, gathered to launch these very special visitors.  Many of the Turtle Patrol Volunteers were in attendance, as were some Jacksonville TV stations.

The Green Turtles have such beautiful markings on their flippers, back and especially their heads.

How many ways can you release a Sea Turtle into the water?

Several ways, but they all seem to involve getting wet.  The small ones are always taken out into the water far enough that they can make it beyond the surf without getting tossed around too much.

This is Marti who is almost adult size.  I believe it had the Pappilloma Virus which infects a lot of the Green Turtles and if left untreated can be fatal.  This virus has not been seen very much in our area but as with most infectious viruses it is now spreading here.  The virus is one of the Herpes type viruses.

Dr. Terry Norton is the head of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center a rehabilitating hospital on Jekyll Island.  He is right there overseeing each step of this release but letting his young assistants learn with a hands-on approach. We had a bit of excitement at the edge of the water as between the first and second release a fairly large, 5' or so, shark was in about a foot of water just beside the last people who were standing in the water's edge, waiting on the release.

Quite a handful.  The Green Turtles are herbivores, eating only plants, algae, mosses, etc.

It almost looks like our young assistant is going to do a little turtle boogie-boarding as the waves begin to break around her.  After a few tries Marti was on his way.

Then it was time for the "Big Girl', Squall.  Each turtle is named for an event, a place, or a person who is involved in finding them and getting them to the Center for treatment.  Squall had lost her right front flipper to a shark bite.  She was found by the Georgia Bulldog Boat which was out doing turtle studies, with fresh shark bites to her flipper and plastron.  After receiving treatment, including antibiotics, they felt she was ready to go back into the wild.  It took a lot of people to carry this big girl to the water.  The staff had evidently made going away signs for their recent charges with well wishes and signed by all.

With the adult turtles of this size, they like for them to make their own way into the water.  She sat for a while studying the situation.  Then she was ready to move slowly ahead, for the first time, with only one flipper.

We know that this is a female because she dropped some of her eggs in her holding tank.  X-rays and ultrasound showed she still had eggs inside.  She was given a drug to stimulate her to drop the rest of her eggs.  I wonder what they did with them.  Dragging that heavy body across the sand without the aid of that right flipper was much more difficult.

I love the rich colors of the Loggerhead and their big, big head.  That was why I choose the Loggerhead for my subject this year for the Turtle Trot T-Shirt.  Although the Green Turtles have pretty patterns on their heads they always look like their head is a bit undernourished to me in comparison to their body.  The Greens do grow to be larger than the Loggerheads by about a 100 pounds.

The water will help with the weight as she will become more buoyant once she can get a bit deeper.  Probably 95% or more of our Sea Turtles are Loggerheads, although we are getting more and more Greens and Leatherbacks these days than in the past.

Turtles have such beautiful eyes.  The red which is on her wound and her mouth is Red Algae and not blood.  It is not harmful.  Sea Turtles do not have teeth but the Loggerhead which does eat crustaceans as well as plants has a crushing bite with this massive parrot-like beak.  Since the Greens are strictly herbivores they don't need such a massive beak.

Her friend and mentor, Dr. Norton, slowly escorts her, correcting her path when she gives in to the less strong side with the missing flipper.

Good luck Squall, you big, beautiful girl!!  I hope I see your tracks on our beach in the near future.  It will be a distinctive track for sure.  Although with the Loggerhead, their back flippers leave most of the track imprints, we often see them have unusual and distinctive tracks telling us that they may be missing all or part of a flipper, but usually its a rear one.  A Loggerhead is a bit testy and will chase a shark, but sometimes get caught off guard when approached from the rear as they come up for a breath.

In she goes.  Her small tracking device attached to her back will help in a study with which the Turtle Center is involved in which turtles with disabilities like Squall has.

I am sure she is happy to be home.

I only put this photo in because I saw one of "my" older Turtle Trot T-Shirts on the assistant with the bullhorn from the Amelia Island Sea Turtle Watch.

We thought we had seen the last of Squall until a few minutes later, when someone spotted her.  With that missing flipper, she had taken a right curving track, and her path became a semi-circle back to shore.

Dr. Norton and his crew quickly ran to the rescue.

It seems she will have a bit of re-learning to do as she manages with a physical handicap such as this, but I am sure she will learn to compensate and will fare just fine.  In a few days you will be able to track her progress on the Sea Turtle Center's website, link>> Look for Squall, (there are three active Loggerhead signals).  The Georgia Turtle Center staff stands and watches this time, to be sure that she is not going to come back in, but it looks like she is on course, and out to sea.