TurtleImages Blog

New painted bunting image

2008-11-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

I entered this image in a contest over at Photrade.com Vote for it if you like it!

Vote for my photo!vote

New Galleries!

2008-10-26T14:44:00.001-07:00

Our site has been updated to include new images captured over the past few years. Check out some previews below:

Click an image to view all of the galleries

2008 Sea Turtle Calendar

2007-12-16T08:02:00.001-08:00

It took a while to put together, but the 2008 sea turtle calendar is available. I get many emails this time of year asking when the calendar is going to be ready, and I was a bit late, but I think it was worth the wait.

This year the calendar features Loggerheads, Greens and Leatherback turtles. All of the pictures were taken along Juno Beach during the past year or two. I think my favorite image on the calendar is the November image of the little "army" of loggerheads running to the ocean.

The calendar can be viewed here or purchased on the Lulu website directly.

a few new images

2007-11-25T12:40:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I have posted anything new here! Here is a new image of a leatherback turtle taken during the 2007 leatherback nesting season. It is one of my favorites of the year! The turtle is named "Clover" and she is a turtle we have been seeing since the 2002 nesting season. Each year she returns, she seems to have something else wrong with her. This year one of her rear flippers had a pretty terrible injury. She nested three times this year - with our help. Clover has a very hard time digging her nests and our crew usually needs to dig her nest for her!

I hope you like the image!

Hawksbill (or possible hybrid) sea turtle hatchling

2007-02-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

This little guy hatched out of a nest on Palm Beach during the week of January 29 2007. It is either a full hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) sea turtle or a possible hawksbill/Loggerhead hybrid. Although hawksbill turtle can always be found in Florida's near shore waters, their nests are pretty rare in Florida. We will be sending some genetic samples to the lab to confirm whether they are hawksbills or not. Results to come!

He is pretty handsome, isn't he?

African Spurred Tortoise

2007-01-20T13:51:00.000-08:00

This is our newest tortoise named Sessie. He has the run of the back yard and has dug himself a pretty impressive burrow. The burrow is probably about 8 feet long and about 3 feet deep. He eats most of the weeds that grow up through the mulch and seems to be enjoying his new home.

Calendar

2006-11-26T08:04:00.000-08:00

It is the time of year when everyone is searching for that perfect calendar. How about a sea turtle calendar? Sunrises, the beach, and endangered animals! What more could anyone ask for?!

This year we are featuring a lot of new loggerhead sea turtles that were spotted as they were finishing up their nests along Palm Beach County beaches. Check out a preview here: 2007 sea turtles of florida calendar

She's back!

2006-11-14T06:12:00.000-08:00

Just an update to let you all know that our little tortoise was found. A week ago Sunday I was out in the backyard and she walked right up to me. She must have been enjoying some of the weeds in the yard and hiding out in the bromeliads. I guess she decided the food we give her is better!

Another tortoise update: Our friend Larry has given us an African Spurred Tortoise (Geochelone sulcata) named Cessie, so we now have new reptile in the family. She (he?) is probably about 20 pounds, and quite a bit larger than our other two tortoises, but when the new one was introduced, she did not receive a warm welcome from our resident male. She is now out of the pen and free to roam about. Her favorite place seems to be the thick vegetation near the air conditioning unit. Kind of noisy, but i guess she likes it. Chris will take some pictures soon and post them.

Lost Tortoise

2006-11-01T16:55:00.000-08:00

We have lost an adult female yellowfoot tortoise in eastern Boca Raton florida. If you have found this girl, please contact 561-228-8006

Heading south

2006-10-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in posting! Chris and I were out of cell range up at christie's cotage in canada ( and christie kept us very busy with fall olympics). We got into ottawa on friday night and met up with christie at her fabulous city apartment. We drove up to her cottage in quebec near mont tremblant. Saturday we had a delicious pancake breakfast and then hiked up to a beaver dam on the montain (sadly, no beaver sightings). The next day we explored numerous watefalls, oh! And I got to rake some leaves while christie burnt stuff and chris helpd move some firewood.it was awesome! On moday we departed tremblant and headed back to ottawa and had dinner at a very delicious resturant with christie's mom, sue. Sadly we had to leave chrisie on monday morning (only after we hit tim horton's one last time!). on our way out of the city we visited ikea and picked up a few items for the kitchen.

We arrived at chris's aunt and uncles around six on tuesday. The lake (lake winola)' was so cute, very thickly settled, tons of houses, but very pretty. We ended up staying at his cousin's cottage and it was adorable. Chris had lots of fond memories of summers spent there (we even sat on the freezing dock and tied to catch a trout). Ant dot and uncle bob fed us well and gave us the grand tour of the area. Much to my delight, we visited the local farmers market and I bought some wonderful squashes and then visted an orchard where I further satisfied my cravings forall things apple. So here we are, on our way out of pa, i have a bit of a cold, but we are doing well. Sort of ready to be home, but sad to leave our adventures behind.

First snow

2006-10-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

Snow!?

2006-10-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

Well, we've reached the far north, it's snowing! And we're not even in canada yet! We took nellie out and she seemed to like it. Not far from the border now!

Back on the road

2006-10-19T08:18:00.000-07:00

We are now back on the road north after spending a few days in the virginia highlands. We spent two really pretty nights in the Mount Roger area. I really enjoyed that area when I was hiking the appalachain trail back in 92. There were lots of great photo opportunities and we took a lot of pictures. Nellie enjoyed hiking along the trails and she even got to see horses and cows up close.

We are now heading north to pennsylvania and it seems that the peak of color is still north of us. In the mountains we found the best colo4 at about 4000 feet, but it looks like there is still some good color to the north!

continued

2006-10-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry about that, some technical difficulties. Long story shorter, we made camp in about 15 seconds flat (in the rain), made some beans and rice with tofu (!) under the shelter of a big pine tree and crashed for the night. It poured rain last night but my tent kept us dry. This morning we reluctantly got up and out, explored the Toe River area (might be a nice spot to set up a yert someday) tried to find another waterfall but the rain was too bad to get out of the car. At last we decided to head back to pack up our soaking tent and get on the road. So off we go to Virginia! Hopefully tonight will be dry...

Camping in the rain is fun

2006-10-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Okay. Well it's not really fun at all, but sometimes you have to tell yourself that so you don't go driving off a cliff intentionally. To recap, we left georgia yesterday morning, just about the time the rain started to fall. We decided the most important thing to do was to find a dunkin donuts. So, using our sophisticated mapping devices, that's just what we did. That took us through Cleveland TN, where Jeremy used to go to school at Lee Univ. We drove along the Ocoee River which was gorgeous. Chris even thought he recognized some spots from when he hiked the Appalachain Trail back in the day. The weather was not improving, but we decided to seek out a waterfall in the Smokey Mountains National Park. Along the way we went through. Bryson City (very cute) and passes multiple tube vendors for an apparently very lucrative recreational tubing business. Anyway, we got there only to find out dogs were not allowed. So we had to leave. That put us back on the road, now a few hours behind schedule. We attempted to locate a campground closer to where we were, but after driving up an endless mountain road we never found it! So, we continued on to a different site farther east. And, we found it¡852~¡*3~4
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Ocoee river

2006-10-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

Ocoee river in HDR captured during our fall trip to Canada, October 2006

Suwannee river

2006-10-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

Well we arrived safe and sound at the Suwannee River campsite. Our first comment was how quiet it was! The park is right along the river, beautiful clear spring water feeding the flow not far from where we are! Perhaps the biggest surprise has been Nellie's magnificent behaviour (trying to be canadian here!) we are now cooking some pesto pasta and enjoying some fantastic wine (Earthquake petit syrah, yum!). Tonight they are calling for record low temps, in the 40's! We arelooking forward to it!

New favorite image

2006-09-04T06:50:00.000-07:00

I think this is my new favorite image of the 2006 turtle nesting season! I was lucky enough to find a few leatherback hatchlings running to the water after an early morning thunderstorm. The light was really nice and a small swell created a large flat sandy area which was perfect for capturing the (not so!) graceful movements of this leatherback hatchling.

The small bit of sargassum and out of focus wave really adds a lot to the picture. What do you think??

2006-07-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

The Yellow-crowned night-heron (Nyctanassa violacea) is a fairly common bird on Florida's beaches. They can be found almost every morning along Florida beaches stalking ghost crabs. Sometimes, although not very often, they will go after sea turtle hatchlings. I found this night heron eating a hatchling loggerhead turtle this morning along Juno Beach. Unfortunately, the loggerhead was already dead and I was forced to watch nature take it's course. Night herons will sometimes stand above a ghost crab hole for tens of minutes while waiting for a crab to pop out of the sand. They then swiftly snatch them in their beak and proceed to swing their head back and forth until most of the legs fall off the crab. The night heron did the same thing with this turtle before swallowing the poor little guy.
There are a few more images in the gallery

Lucky mornings

2006-06-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

For the past week or two I have been lucky enough to catch a turtle or two nesting as the sun rose along Juno Beach. This morning was one of those days! I came across this nesting green sea turtle just south of the Juno Beach Park Fishing Pier. She seemed to be having some trouble laying eggs, so I checked her out and her cloaca was completely plugged up with eggs! I have never seen anything like that in all my years of sea turtle work! She was missing a rear flipper and it is possible that there was other damge that caused the blockage?? I removed about a dozen eggs and she continued to lay a normal size clutch of eggs and she returned to the water about an hour and a half later. Check out some of the pictures in the gallery.

Pleasant morning

2006-06-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

In my position as a biologist at the Loggerhead marinelife center in Juno Beach I have the wonderful opportunity to survey the beach each summer morning. On Friday June 16th, I watched as this loggerhead sea turtle finished laying her eggs after dawn. If you take a close look at the photo, you will notice a waterspout in the background! An image of a threatened species after the sun has risen with a waterspout in the frame - Lucky!!

Alberto?

2006-06-11T01:05:00.000-07:00

As the first tropical depression of the season tries to spin itself into tropical storm alberto, the weather is changing here in South Florida. This morning the sunrise was really beautiful. I will post a few more from this morning in a few days. Stay tuned for more updates as the storm approaches and maybe I will be able to capture a few lighting images!
Take a look at the website www.floridaleatherbacks.com for our daily research updates and see how Alberto will be affecting the sea turtles nesting along Juno Beach.

Wild Ride

2006-05-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share this story since it's something I've been hearing about since I started doing sea turtle work in St. Lucie County. The St.Lucie nuclear power plant has a seawater intake pipe that draws in ocean water to cool the nuclear reactors. Inevitably, many turtles swimming in the nearshore waters are taken into the pipe and end up inside a large canal. Here they are surrounded by nets (so that they don't move any farther along the canal) and are eventually captured by a group of folks from Quantum Resources, whose job it is to capture, tag, document, and release all the turtles they catch.

I've been lucky enough to visit the canal on a few occasions and have seen loggerheads and green turtles captured and released...and I've seen the beautiful rays, sharks, and other fish that occasionally find themselves in the canal. I had only heard stories, however, of leatherbacks being drawn in and captured by the crew. Leatherbacks are not typically nearshore swimmers, and being so large, they tend not to accidentally take the wild ride down the intake pipe into the canal. But a few Fridays ago, as I was out doing the morning nesting beach survey, Brenda and I got a call that a leatherback had found her way into the canal. We rushed up there as fast as we could, hoping she was still swimming around (even though I've seen plenty of nesting leatherbacks with Chris, I've never seen a leatherback in the water).

When we arrived, everyone was stationed around the canal, nets in the water and plenty of hands on deck to help. Brenda and I stood on the dock, and after watching for what felt like hours, we finally saw the leatherback's black head and the anterior portion of her carapace rise above the surface as she took a breath. Despite her unfamiliar surroundings, the turtle was relatively calm (unlike other leatherbacks that have been captured, I was told). She managed to avoid the tangle nets quite well, but after a few laps around the canal, she suddenly appeared in the shallow water. Everyone scrambled to get more nets in the water, but she disappeared. At last, the turtle slowly swam up to the bank of the canal and stopped. It was almost as if she was asking to be taken out and returned to the ocean! Michael Bresette grabbed her flipper and yelled for help.

Several people grabbed a stretcher and pulled the massive turtle out of the water. She was scraped up quite a bit from her ride through the intake pipe, but seemed to be in good health. As everyone checked her over, we realized she had tags in her rear flippers! I was excited because I thought she may be one of Chris's turtles from Juno Beach, but the tags looked strange, so I knew she wasn't. She was quickly loaded up onto a trailer and driven out to the beach so that she could be released as soon as possible. Leatherbacks do not do well in captivity, and the stress of this event was probably quite exhausting for her.

Once on the beach, she slowly made it back into the surf. We all watched as she swam away. There were many people there who had never seen a leatherback before, so it was an exciting morning for everyone. I later learned that this turtle had been tagged in Honduras. Quite a swim from Hutchinson Island! It's clear that the work being done at the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant canal is important for documenting the turtles that are using Florida's waters. The benefit of tagging turtles is obvious too; we wouldn't have had any information about this leatherback if she hadn't been tagged. One mystery is left though, was she here to nest this season? Guess we won't know unless Chris sees her on the beach down in Juno!

Terrible carapace damage

2006-05-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night May 14 2006 Kelly, Sara and I watched in disbelief as a leatherback turtle nested successfully with horrible carapace damage. She is a turtle that we tagged during the course of our research at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center. This turtle had been hit by a boat recently and was beginning to heal. I have posted a few images here and on the www.floridaleatherbacks.com website. Please share these images with others!

All marine turtle images taken in Florida were obtained with the approval of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife (USFWS) and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commision (FWC) under conditions not harmful to this or other turtle

Cuban Knight Anoles

2006-04-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

I had thought Hurricane Wilma had taken care of removing most of the Cuban Knight Anoles from the neighborhood, but I was wrong. This morning I have found three adult lizards already! This is an image I took yesterday of a lizard in the backyard eating a dragonfly. These lizards are not native and will often eat native lizards. Maybe they will eat a few of the iguanas??