Loading...
August 30, 2001 - On sea turtles and sandpipersThe Suffolk Times • August 30, 2001 n sea turtles and sandDIDers Photo by Barbara Stoutenburgh This huge leatherback sea turtle washed ashore in East Marion back in October 1984. Its demise probably came about because it left the warm water of the Gulf Stream and was entrapped in the cooler waters of the north. MOST OF US HAVE SEEN TURTLES Of one sort or another, whether it was the wood turtle, commonly called the box turtle, or the one you see in the ponds called the painted turtle, and yes, some of you might have even seen that ugly brute, the snap - FOCUS ping turtle, that comes out of its ON muddy world in NATURE search of a place by Paul to lay its eggs. Stoutenburgh Sooner or later we'll see one of these turtles, but there's one that you probably won't see, except on extremely rare occasions, such as the one a caller recently related to me. friends in the Gut off the end of Orient Point when all of a sudden, alongside their boat, they saw a huge sea turtle. It was at least six or seven feet long. It swam with grace and ease in the clear water where they were drifting for bluefish. It seemed to be from another world. The turtle they were seeing was the rare leatherback turtle, the largest of all turtles. It's found in all the tropi- cal waters of the world. Occasionally it comes north in the summer as it drifts in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. In its wanderings it's been found as far north as Nova Scotia. The problem is it indulges itself in this warm water during the summer months but then strays out of the nrotection of the Gulf Stream only to be caught in the cooler waters as fall and winter approach. Being cold - blooded, the big leatherback is doomed by the cold of winter. As the picture here shows, one of those doomed turtles washed ashore on the Sound beach of East Marion years ago. It was here I first became acquainted with it. The reason they call it the leatherback turtle is that it doesn't have that hard shell we usual- ly associate with turtles. Rather, its covering is a soft leathery skin that's ery oily. The story goes that a taxi - ermist tried to mount one of these uge turtles for an exhibit in a muse - m but after six months the turtle as still oozing oil. Like all sea turtles, they are oppor- unists, as they eat almost anything hat passes in front of them, including mall fish, a variety of seaweeds, jel- yfish and occasionally plastic bags hat look like jellyfish. Needless to ay, these plastic death traps have laimed untold numbers of innocent ea turtles of all kinds. Like other sea turtles, these eatherback turtles come ashore to ay their eggs in the warm sands of he tropics, which occasionally includes Florida. Little is known bout the life cycles of these big tur- tles. The newly hatched young have been seen and studied but there is a mystery about where they go during their juvenile years. Most of the information we know about these big turtles. comes from the sighting of adults. Jo those who were bluetishing got one of the rare sights when they saw that great leatherback. It was so unusual that one of the party ex- plained that the appearance of that huge turtle swimming alongside their boat was almost a religious experi- ence. I envied them, for it is a sight few will ever be privileged to see, and yet to think it happened right here in our local waters. From huge to tiny Now let's jump from the giant leatherback turtle to one of the smallest of all shorebirds, the semi - palmated sandpiper. Because of its small size and lack of any outstand- ing marks of identification, few will take time to find out about this tiny transient. Barbara and I just recently reac- quainted ourselves with it while clamming in one of the creeks here on the North Fork. We had worked ourselves up to a low bog where hun- dreds of ribbed mussels lay imbedded in the mud. As we casually surveyed the area, our eyes caught a move- ment among the masses of mussels. As these birds are often very tame we were able to observe this tiny shorebird feeding away about the muddy ooze of the bog. Here was a lesson in Bog Biology 101. It had stopped here to refuel itself on its migration south. This small shorebird has a compan- ion in size called the least sandpiper; together they are commonly called "peeps" because of their small size. Both of these shorebirds, along with others, have already been to the tun- dra of the near Arctic to breed and are now on their journey south to the Caribbean and adjoining lands where they'll spend the winter. This minute glimpse into the life ourney of the semipalmated sand - iper merely touches the surface of he trials and tribulations this tiny horebird must go through to survive. 11 along its perilous flight are natur- 1 and manmade pitfalls. Whether its falcon swooping out of nowhere or violent storm or the lights from a lighthouse or skyscrapers that lure all migrating birds at night or the simple loss of a mud flat due to filling. All these plus untold other hazards gave Barbara and me reason to delight in watching this tiny wonder of the shorebird clan. Record - breaking distance This week a letter came to Focus on Nature from probably the greatest distance yet from where this paper is published, the Johnston Atoll, one of the most isolated atolls in the world. It's located in the central Pacific Ocean, between the Hawaiian Islands and the Marshall Islands. Donna O'Daniel receives her Focus on Nature from her dad, Clarence Jones, who now lives in Arizona. He was a high school class- mate of mine some 60 years ago. Donna is a wildlife biologist at the Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, where she is monitoring and studying 14 species of tropical seabirds. Along with her letter she sent along an interesting brochure of information and photographs she and others have taken of the seabirds. (How I envy her.) When I looked to see just where she was working, I wrote back and asked her if she happened to know someone who works on the Hawaiian Islands, which are 700 miles from where she is. When Barbara and I camped in Hawaii in 1991 we wanted to get into the Campbell Black Stilt Preserve on Oahu to see and photo- graph the beautiful black- necked stilts. I spoke to someone at the Fish and Wildlife Service office there and they said they would check and see if it was possible. Later I received a call from Jim Glynn, who said, "Hi, Paul, how are you? Remember me? We worked together at Fire Island National Seashore." Sure enough, we got to see Jim, who got us into the preserve where we were able to spend time photographing. I'm curious to know in that far -off place if Donna and Jim might have worked together. It's sometimes such a small world.