SEA TURTLES Archives - Page 6 of 11 -

Welcome to the World Baby Turtles

By Simone Lipscomb | July 19, 2013

It was a glorious afternoon. I arrived at the nest we had been watching at 4.30pm and listened with the stethoscope. One 20 second cascade of sand was heard with some crawling sounds. Over an hour later…same. And on it went for hours. Checking only once an hour and thinking the turtles were resting…but that moon might just enliven them….a girl can hope, right?

In the meanwhile one of our team members refined the trench two had dug the day before. The trench helps the turtles from wandering to porch lights, condo lights and acts as a guide for their long crawl to the beach…which is especially long since the beaches were renourished, refurbished…whatever they call it. It is a very long crawl for such tiny tots. In crowded, light-polluted areas it gives the newborns their best chance at making it to open water.

The especially loooong crawl to the water....the trench helps with the light pollution experienced on our beaches. — The especially loooong crawl to the water….the trench helps with the light pollution experienced on our beaches.

Even though my shift was officially over at 9pm I had an intuitive hunch to stay around a while. At 10pm one of our folks checked and heard very active babies. They had awakened and were busy crawling up in their nest. When I last listened at 11pm it was a constant cascade of sand…so much so that I couldn’t believe we had not had some change in the surface. Just after listening I looked and saw a very small lip of sand had formed…no greater than 1.5 inches on one side of the nest. When a friend and fellow turtle-lover joined us from her home on the beach I asked her to re-check the nest at 11.20pm. In just a few moments she was excitedly saying….hurry!! They are coming!!

Because the sand was perfectly dry and fluffy, there wasn’t a big crater until they boiled. And boil they did…..delightful loggerhead hatchlings.

I squatted just outside the nest and watched as these little darlings used the steep incline as a slide. It was perfectly beautiful, perfectly precious. I sang Happy Birthday, Happy Trails and wished them well….my usual softly-delivered welcome-to-the-world-angels speech.

Hatchling from 2012. We cannot use any lights/flashes, etc when a hatching is happening. This one was from an excavation early evening last year.

While other humans were in front of TV’s or in bars or perhaps doing some job they hate in a place they like less, a sacred gift was bestowed on all who braved the late hour to witness one of nature’s miracles. I would not trade those hours for anything I know.

During the middle of the hatching, when there was a momentary lull in the action, I checked the nest and one baby was very still under a lip of sand. After all the others had vacated and were happily (hopefully) swimming in the sea, I kept tabs on the sleepy baby. A cascade here and there as well as crawling sounds were still happening and soon another baby slid down the sand slide to begin her march to the beach. There was one active baby that ‘swam’ up in the sandy nest that actually crawled over to the resting sibling and nudged her awake. Then together they took their miraculous journey to the saltwater…the journey that reverberates with healing metaphors that offer wisdom to all who are open to the teachings.

Arriving home near 3am I found myself once again feeling in sync with nature, with the cycles of life and the hope that is always birthed with a sea turtle nest exploding into life.

Before the Dawn

By Simone Lipscomb | June 30, 2013

The Earth issues an invitation to commune with the light. Each Sunday morning I answer by rising before dawn and walking along the shore at the Gulf of Mexico. My purpose is to look for sea turtle tracks that indicate nesting activity but my intention is simply to listen and share with the salt water, the white-sand shores and the essence of light that, in my mind, is the creative force from which everything arises and to which it returns.

Dawn on the beach near Gulf Shores, Alabama

Being part of a dedicated team of individuals who love sea turtles and nature is rewarding. Its that affiliation that nudges me out of slumber and my list of excuses to make it to ‘church’ on time.

I started walking both ways in my section of beach to have more time in nature and to extend my time in communion with the nameless emanation of love…of light. I share aloud with the sea my grief at humanity’s sins against the planet and each other. I beam with excitement as the light changes prior to sunrise. The sight of a dolphin’s dorsal fin slicing through the surface ignites passion for and love of all creatures– the fish being chased and eaten by dolphins and sharks…and osprey; tiny coquina shells returning after being wiped out from the oil spill three years ago; ghost crabs….all life is sacred.

In the Sunday morning pilgrimage I look for sea turtle tracks and expand my heart energy walking east. After reaching the western most point in my section, I turn and walk back picking up trash left by humanity. Water bottles, cigarette butts, tampon applicators, boat bailing jugs, fishing lures, aluminum cans, rope, balloon bits and small bits of broken plastic. That was this morning’s haul. Later I’ll sort it into recycling and trash piles.

It is during this walk back where I especially feel grief as I gather in the sins of humanity into a garbage bag–the bits and pieces of cast-off junk thoughtlessly tossed or left to injure sea life, decompose over the next 500 years into toxic components. Oh, this is the challenging time in my conversation with light.

This morning, two things of notice happened. First, on my eastward trek I kept feeling a presence to my right. I looked out over the Gulf and saw a cloud, illuminated by dawn’s glory before the sun had peeked above the horizon. The magic of sunrise, the magic of light at work.

The Harry Potter nest this morning.... — The Harry Potter nest this morning….

The second little miracle was a sea turtle nest found by two of my patrol buddies on another section of ‘our’ beach. Life continues.

Sky from last year....the favorite photograph of light I've taken — Sky from last year…favorite photograph of light I’ve taken

And while answers haven’t been forthcoming so much lately, it could be true that it really is darkest just before the dawn. Let there be light!

Radical Joy for Hard Times

By Simone Lipscomb | June 22, 2013

A few years ago I spent a week with Joanna Macy and a wonderful group of folks working together to understand what’s happening to our planet and how we can help during this difficult time. The workshop was awesome but it was the extended relationships that have continued to give me hope and inspiration. One such connection was a woman who started an annual event called, The Global Earth Exchange.

Each year people all over the planet go to wounded places to make beauty and affirm that we love and appreciate them. No matter what happened to these places, we still love and respect them. And celebrate them.

Today I met with two of my friends on part of our sea turtle nesting patrol beach. We created a sea turtle from found objects on the beach and shared the joy of coming together with like-minded people to celebrate sea turtles and community-building!!

For me personally, this past week has been emotionally brutal as I dared to touch the grief and frustration about how humans continue to abuse the planet, each other and all species. As we were building the sea turtle I felt our love and connection to each other, to sea turtles and the greater community of humanity coming together to celebrate and spread joy.

It was a powerful reminder that as long as two or more gather…and connect with others….and hold joy and love and peace in our hearts we can make a difference. This is a time for radical joy, a time for working hard to heal ourselves and each other…and our precious, sacred Mother Earth.

Check out photographs and stories from the Global Earth Exchange here. Thanks Trebbe!!

NEEDED!!: More Time In Nature

By Simone Lipscomb | June 17, 2013

Last week began the transfer of my blog to self-hosting and my website to my blog so a marriage could take place between the two. It was time to merge my writing and Turtle Island Adventures and make one website that united it all.

Once the blog was transferred to my hosting company’s servers, I rebuilt the blog website and added in pages from my Turtle Island Adventures site. Over eight hours of merging information, updating, revising, changing the theme. It was a very mental day with my brain working overtime in an area that it really isn’t fond of lingering.

Then came the end of the day and I called my hosting company to ask about backing up my site. The nice guy said, sure but let’s look at your hosting. And then came a barrage of glitches with their hosting. He was trying to fix an issue another guy there had created and he couldn’t resolve it. We spent over…way over…an hour trying to resolve this so I could save money. We never got it worked out so I was left paying twice as much for hosting as I should be because of a mistake another guy at this particular hosting company made that couldn’t be resolved.

But never mind all that….the constant left-brain activity and 90 minutes on the phone dealing with files, codes, IP addresses…I felt fried. I had missed a photo shoot I wanted to do and felt like I needed to stick my head in a bucket of ice water. I was supposed to awaken at 4.30am, do my sea turtle nest patrol, clean up and drive to Atlanta for a gathering and an over-night visit with a friend. After a week out of the country and a four day trip to Michigan over the past two weeks I felt as if I was imploding.So I cleared everything off my weekend schedule except the sea turtle nest patrol and watched an old movie while eating popcorn.

The eastern glow of the rising sun was just warming the night sky as I stepped barefoot onto the beach. As soon as I took my flip-flops off and felt the sand my entire body breathed a sigh of relief. It was in that moment that I realized I had Nature Deficit. The walk was a blissful reminder that I simply cannot be healthy and balanced without a daily connection to nature.

This morning found me sitting in my hammock chair on my back porch watching dawn arrive. My two cat companions were intently listening to songbirds and I was watching clouds move above the massive branches of the live oak tree that lives in the courtyard.

Then another morning of polishing the new web/blog site but I’m grooving. Patience for tedious adjustments has been with me and I remember to glance out the large window and observe the oak trees, sky and squirrels scurrying around brown branches.

It’s my guess that we can all use more time in nature….and less time in front of computer screens.

Welcome Home Sweetheart

By Simone Lipscomb | May 20, 2013

She drew the story of her dance of love and left it for us to witness the beauty–of life and birth. She is a wild artist, with a flair for the dramatic, this siren of the deep, this lovely mother.

In the dark of night, with starlight lighting her way, she heaved herself out of the water and crawled ashore. Dragging her body, filled with eggs–with hope, did she pull her way up the beach.

Digging with her back flippers, she made a nest where 131 moist, fat eggs were slowly dropped, then covered.

Off she slid, down the steep, sand bank and crawled along the water’s edge creating a lovely portrait of her journey, left behind for those lucky enough to witness it and see.

This southern sweetheart is welcomed home to the beach where she was born over twenty years ago. Join with me in celebrating our first sea turtle nest of the year in Alabama.