UCF research students, monitoring a leatherback nest on South Melbourne Beach.
I went to the beach this morning to check out the surf being kicked up by Earl, beginning to make its pass just east of the Florida coast. To my delight, these two young researchers were checking the nest of a leatherback turtle, where they were monitoring the hatch rate and checking for undeveloped embryos. While sorting through the eggs, they turned up a hatchling; did I want to release it? Hell, yeah!
This little guy (I really have no idea if its a guy or a gal; the masculine presumption is just something that was ingrained by dozens of teachers training us in "proper" grammar) wasn't moving much in the box, but his little flippers took off when I picked him up! He was ready to start swimming, that's for sure, and I wasn't so sure that he really wanted any help at all.
Here he is after his first encounter with the water. One small wave, and he knew exactly where he wanted to go! It's too bad he picked such a bad day to try to get into the surf! Earl was churning up the shore!
Wave #2 put him back up on the sand.
But that didn't stop him from flapping his way towards the ocean . . .
A local surfer was not so patient as I, and since he feared the little one might get picked off by a bird, he walked him into deeper water and he was gone, swimming strongly away from the shore.
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