Archive for September, 2008

Landslide!

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

You’ve just been born; you discard your eggshell and tunnel to the surface. Now you must make a mad dash for safety. Unlike sea turtles who hatch at night and head for the brightest horizon (hopefully the sea, but all too often a local fast food restaurant), you emerge during the day and head out in a random “drunkard’s walk” without any clear sense of direction, hoping to find vegetative shelter. Momma lays her nest on a steep slope, hoping you’ll take the hint and slide downward into the safety of wrack line and salt marsh grasses. But you choose the “high road,” struggling like a Mount Everest sherpa to climb the soft, sandy, high dune of Turtle Point. And then comes the landslide.

Confronting Sandy Avalanche with Neither Angst Nor Doubt

Peek Inside the Egg Chamber

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

Like a clenched fist deep inside a carefully carved terrapin nest lies the egg chamber where the female has deposited her clutch 75 days earlier. When the clock chimes “emergence,” hatchlings squirm and wiggle their way free of their siblings to begin their dash for survival.  Today at noon the alarm rang for Nest 280 on the high dune of Turtle Point on Lieutenant Island.  Count noses, count eyes, count limbs as hatchlings get ready to sprint for freedom.

Hatchling Bunched Tightly in Egg Chamber

“All Work and No Play” Hatchling Style

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

Yes. Hatching, emerging and dashing into hiding is very serious business for diamondback terrapin hatchlings. One mis-step and you become a predator snack. Still, that’s no reason to avoid an opportunity for a little fun en route to the safety of the nursery salt marsh.

Terrapin Hatchling “Playfully” Slide Down Dune