Turtle Beach on Siesta Key

This week Maranda and I went to Turtle Beach to complete the items she needed for her Marine Biology project. Turtle Beach is about 2.5 miles further south on the key from Crescent Beach. You can check it out here from the Siesta Key Chamber website. He assignment was Mangroves, so we went to the boat launch at Turtle Beach where we usually take the kayak. We could get pretty close to Mangroves by land there. Here is one shot that we saw. Wade suggested South Lido Beach, those Mangroves we can kayak through "trails" that weave throughout.

We got some photos and some pods, and small oyster shells that were laying around she can use.

So that done it was still early and we were that close to the beach, we had to walk the beach! Here we go. I think we'll plan on showing you all the beaches in the area.

I think it was last year that they did a beach refurbishment and the wooden bridges that took you over the sea grass were washed away by some storms. They now just have a roped path leading through the vegetation. This is a popular beach for the Loggerhead Turtles to come ashore and lay their eggs. Mote Marine usually patrols the beaches in the area during turtle nesting season, (starts in May) and section off any nests that they find during the night. They are counted, dated, and marked. The monitoring continues until they hatch. It's quite interesting.

We saw all different kinds of birds here today. This Blue Heron is waiting for whatever is left from this fisherman.

Of course seagulls and some little Sandpipers.

This beach had a little more shells than Crescent Beach had last week.

Some Terns and a gull walking up to check them out.

Terns.

The sand starts to get darker here, then it's even darker further south in Venice. Here is a crab hole. When we go out to Turtle Beach for sunset all the crabs are running in and out of there holes. They are the color of the sand so it's hard to see the unless they run when you get up close. I didn't want to wait for him to peek out to snap a shot of him.

Sandpipers. I missed getting the picture of the sanderlings, they run too fast on the waterline.

After all that we forgot to get some of this sand for the sandy bottom in the mangroves, so we'll have to go back tomorrow. Can't tonight it's Halloween! It was a beautiful morning, but it's unseasonably hot, high near 90. Poor little Trick-or-treaters will be sweating in any costume!

Happy Halloween!