One half of the Turtle Journal team researches the “beach scene” along the Gulf Coast of Southwest Florida. Regal visitors such as these royal terns flock to the warm sands of Vanderbilt Beach in February.  Shores abound in variety and vibrancy.
Contrasting with southerly vistas of glistening sands and bountiful wildlife in Florida, the other half of the Turtle Journal team slogs through jumbles of ice floes that clog bayside estuaries of Outer Cape Cod. January Wolf Moon tides piled multi-ton ice slabs onto the marsh like too generous servings of IHOP pancakes.
Ice Floes Clog Loagy Bay in South Wellfleet, Cape Cod
Today’s posting compares visual vignettes from the two research sites: a Dickensian Tale of Two Journals.Â
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …“
Tropical Coconut Washes Ashore on Gulf Coast
Ice Clogged Inside “Elbow” of Cape Cod Bay
Stone Crab on Vanderbilt Beach
Arctic-Like Conditions at Point of Rocks, Brewster
Loggerhead Sea Turtle on Vanderbilt Beach in Naples
During the Turtle Journal beach patrol this morning in Southwest Florida, Sue Wieber Nourse found a sub-adult loggerhead sea turtle that had washed ashore with the high tide on Vanderbilt Beach in Naples. This animal, covered with barnacles, likely is a remnant of the massive cold-stunning event that hit the Florida coast in January.
SW Florida Loggerhead Sea Turtle
The stranded animal was reported to appropriate authorities by Turtle Journal through the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples.
Cellphone Video of Stranded Florida Loggerhead
Other fun beach treasures found on the Turtle Journal morning patrol include the following.
Weekly Reader, which has been publishing educational material for children for more than a century, spotlighted Turtle Journal research on whelks in two of its recent news magazines.Â
Channeled Whelk Egg Casing from Cape Cod Bay
Photographs of channeled whelk casings, many of which were originally posted on Turtle Journal, appeared in Issue 14, Volume 18 of the Weekly Reader Senior Edition on January 22nd, 2010, as well as the same issue and volume of Edition 3 magazine.
Channel Whelk Egg Cases
Size of Channeled Whelk Egg Case in Centimeters
Baby Channeled Whelks in Egg Case
Baby Channeled Whelks under Microscopic Examination
The Turtle Journal team arrived in Naples, Florida this afternoon for an annual update of our research observations along the southwest Florida coastline. As the journal awaits the latest research material to arrive from the south, the moment seems ripe to reflect on the marvelously varied and colorful wildlife of the Gulf area.
Brown Pelican
Juvenile Alligator
Snail Shell and Sand Dollar
Gopher Tortoise on the Ritz Carlton Beach
Assortment of Shells from Vanderbilt Beach
Seahorse
Royal Tern
Next week at this time the Turtle Journal will begin posting results of this year’s expedition to the Sunshine State.
Six pilot whales rise from the sands of history, uncovered by scouring storms that battered Outer Cape Cod in December and January.  In a rare moment in time revealed by the natural forces that continue to shape our world today, we capture an epic scene from long ago, frozen in the very sands that are Cape Cod.
Long-Finned Pilot Whale Skeleton Emerges
As we patroled the west beach of Lieutenant Island in Wellfleet, Turtle Journal came across still articulated skeletons of long-finned pilot whales rising from the sands of what had formerly been an ancient salt marsh, now succumbed to the forces of nature and transformed to a barrier beach.Â
Pilot Whales Rise from Sands of History
Imagine … as one hundred, or perhaps two hundred or more years ago, a pod of pilot whales chased bait fish into a flooded salt marsh on the western edge of Horse Island, now Lieutenant Island, in Wellfleet Bay. Maybe on a day like Monday with gale winds howling from the southwest pushing flood water into the bay, the whales swam high into the marsh where they became unexpectedly trapped and stranded when the ebb tide dropped suddenly beneath them, leaving the animals stuck in the ooze marshlands.
1893 Map of Wellfleet Bay
In those historic days, stranded pilot whales offered survival and a little prosperty to Outer Cape residents scratching a hard living in a harsh and unforgiving environment. The nearby estuary is named Blackfish Creek in honor of pilot whales, also known as blackfish, that stranded in the hundreds and sustained Cape Codders during the toughest of times. For more information on pilot whale strandings, see Discovery of Historic Pilot Whale Bones Hints at Cape Cod’s Past.
Four Articulated Pilot Whale Skeletons “in Formation”
The exposed bones on Lieutenant Island revealed four still largely articulated pilot whales lying two by two at the northern edge of the beach.
Two More Pilot Whale Skeletons Begin to Emerge
About 100 feet behind this formation of four, two more pilot whales were just beginning to emerge from the moist sands.
DO NOT DISTURB!
Alive, dead or skeletons, pilot whales are as precious to us today as they were to our Cape ancestors, albeit for different reasons. Marine mammals are protected under federal law and regulations. They may be observed and enjoyed without disturbance.
HOT OFF THE PRESSES
CapeCast, the on-line broadcast of the Cape Cod Times, reports on this discovery today, January 26th, 2010.
