Nature's Tragedies

My husband called me out of my office to check something outside. He led me out by the fig trees to a small carefully excavated hole.  "What is this?" he wanted to know.

There were white fragments. At first glance I wondered if they were crawdad pincers.

 

Upon closer examination they were small, brittle eggshells. Henry wanted to know what the was the story here.  We wondered if this was evidence of turtles hatching out or what. He had his phone on him so I asked him to take pictures.





I have a Facebook/blogger friend that I thought would know the answer.  Naturalist writer and artist,  Julie Zickefoose, is someone I thought would be able to read and interpret this nature story. Sure enough she wrote back that it WAS a turtle nest that had been dug out by a skunk or raccoon. Since I've seen a raccoon in the back yard recently, I'm guessing he is the culprit. An additional email confirmed that it was either a box turtle nest or a snapper turtle nest - probably the snapper turtle. When baby turtles hatch and leave the nest they only leave a very small hole - not one with piles of dirt and tailings.

Julie says that every time she sees a turtle laying eggs, she covers the nesting area with a cage to protect the turtle eggs so they can hatch. I'm not sure we've ever seen a turtle laying eggs although we see them regularly on the pond.

I suspect we will try to be more observant during turtle egg laying season in late spring and summer.  I also realized that I need to work on my turtle identification of the turtles I see in and around my pond.

Getting Back into the Groove

It seems like when we get home from a trip, I have a transition time before my productivity starts back up.

We took our time coming back from Florida touring areas of Biloxi that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina and driving around parts of New Orleans.

When we got back into Texas we explored Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, Boy Scout Woods at High Island, and the Atwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge.

We drove around Anahuac Tuesday afternoon to get an idea what all was there. I got a few shots of this young alligator in one of the ditches.



We spent the night at an older motel at Crystal Beach - the closest operating motel to High Island. We got up fairly early, but not the predawn that I envisioned. Grabbing breakfast items I headed over to Boy Scout Woods and lugged my big lens into the photo blind. Not too much activity, so I tried a couple of other spots. While I did have some birds come and check me out, my best photos were of some turtles sunning themselves. My first photos have some blurred grasses that annoy me, but I waited patiently and this turtle began to move forward giving me a stronger shot.





I was amazed at how the spring green growth in the water coated their shells.

I spent a couple of hours hoping for some bird shots and then we headed back to Anahuac. While we missed the best of the early morning light, we did see several groups of alligators. There were three alligators sunning near each other and Henry proclaimed - yes this is a shot - so I got out the big lens and played.



We started heading in the direction of home but using a route that took us by the Atwater Prairie Chicken NWR. While we did not see any prairie chickens I learned about an upcoming event where visitors are driven out to watch the last of the displays of the season. It is not disruptive to nesting because the nests are well established. These amazing chickens are highly endangered - less than 50 chickens are currently found at this refuge.

We made the loop a number of times. Right before sunset, a bittern made his appearance. He was so comical as he stretched his neck out and tried to stay perfectly still hoping that we would not notice him.



We knew it was close to sunset and we would be finishing up near the water. We came across the last rays of sun and I knew I had to have that picture. So . . . picture me scrambling madly to get out the proper tripod - change the lens and get set up just as quick as I could because I knew if I was not very fast, I would miss it. You can see how close I came, the sun is almost all the way down. While I took more that may work, this one is my favorite as the sun is still visible as it sets on the horizon.