12 May ‘Wild Florida’ Adventures: One Last Leatherback
Leatherback sea turtles were on my mind as I pulled into Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge’s beach-side parking lot. My quest for nesting sea turtles to photograph for my Wild Florida book had begun several weeks prior, before summer settled in. I knew where to find Florida’s most common nesting turtle, the loggerhead, but I was particularly interested in photographing leatherback sea turtles since my goal is to feature Florida’s unique wildlife, and Florida is the only place in the continental U.S. where leatherbacks nest regularly. I’d seen leatherbacks nesting by the hundreds in Trinidad (read about it in my blog), but they’re not nearly as abundant in Florida. I’d explored every accessible beach from New Smyrna to Jupiter, the area with Florida’s highest density of leatherback nests, to no avail – until I discovered this particular stretch of protected beach. Before I’d even left the boardwalk on my first visit, I saw several large, leatherback-sized tracks criss-crossing the beach. I knew I’d found the patch of sand I was looking for, though sadly on that first visit all I found were a couple of dead hatchlings. I hoped for better luck on this early July morning.
I scanned the dark beach hoping to see the Mini Cooper-sized form of a mother finishing her nest in the final moments before sunrise as I stepped from the treeline into the ocean breezes. There were no such mounds, but fresh tracks confirmed new nests had likely been added. It was the time of season when late nests were still being laid and early nests were already hatching; my goal shifted from tardy mothers to early babies. I headed to the shoreline, scanning for signs of recent hatchlings.
It wasn’t long before I spotted a set of tiny tracks in the sand. I followed them toward the dune, knowing I would find more tracks the closer I got to the nest. Finally, my trail ended in an explosion of flipper prints, a maze that spiraled to a depression in the sand where the nest chamber had collapsed after the young fought their way free from their leathery shells, and through dense sand. The strong would have emerged at night, racing in mass to the sea in a protective shield of darkness. But I knew there could be stragglers, those still struggling to escape the confines of the nest as the sun peaked above the horizon. There were none at this hatched nest, nor the next, but I kept searching.
It wasn’t until the sun was already high in the sky, at a time when I debated heading back in defeat, that I finally spotted a small gap in the sand. I dropped to my knees and peered into the opening. The curl of a flipper and a glimmering eye was all I could see in the shadowed sand. I sat and watched the sand shift imperceptibly as this last hatchling wriggled toward the light.
I sat and I sat. Minutes felt like hours as only the tip of the flipper and the end of a nose slowly emerged. Half an hour passed with little further progress. Gulls marauded down the beach. Increasingly intense heat emanated from the sand. I recalled watching a night heron wrangle a baby leatherback on my last visit, gulping it whole. Threats would continue mounting against my buried friend as the day progressed. I vowed to keep this baby company until it made it safely to the water.
Time passed, finally the flipper was free from the sand. The scooping became more efficient, the hole widened at a considerably improved pace. I was elated when the baby turtle finally burst free from the hole, all flippers flailing.
At night baby turtles head toward light to find the sea. I’m not sure what guided this baby in the brightness of day, without its instinctual cue, but it headed straight toward the ocean. It was not, however, to be an easy journey. Every divot in the sand, each human footprint, represented a mountain, valley or sheer cliff to such a little journeyman. It tumbled. It flipped. It steered off-course. But it always circled around, flippers flipping relentlessly through sand, through seaweed in the wrack line, through foam and finally, through the water as a returning wave lapped my little turtle out to sea. Proud as any mother, I watched it bob a few times, and then my baby leatherback disappeared into its new world. Perhaps I would meet it on this beach again, many years from now as a mother laying her nest.
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