The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note of any observations you have made of the world around you. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
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No Bucket has appeared yet today. Here is a shortened version of what I planned to put out on my pelagic trip on Sept. 28. Part II will appear later.
This was a birding trip but it was also a sea turtle release trip.
The trip was run by the Marine Science Center based in Ponce Inlet Florida. Among other things they do both turtle and sea bird rehabilitation. Also along on the trip were two young women who are employees of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center based on Jekyll Island in the middle of the Georgia coastline.
The marine science center had a couple of hatchlings to release. These are loggerheads. Correction of previous incorrect statement: loggerheads are the most abundant breeding sea turtle in Florida.
The GSTC folks had two year old turtles. Apparently they had failed to leave the nest and then spent a year in captivity. One of them, at least, was considerably larger than a year old turtle would be in the wild.
They were being taken on this rather long boat ride because young turtles apparently spend their time well offshore and habitually hand out in the 'weed lines' which are clumps of sargassum weed in the gulf stream. The sargassum weed habitat contains food but relatively few predators compared to inshore environments. So once we got to some nice clumps both the hatchlings and the yearlings got set free.
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