Alabama Coast Archives - Page 8 of 29 -

Turtles, Stars, Sand and Sea

By Simone Lipscomb | August 9, 2016

In the dark of the night a faint glow emitted from the snow-white sand. From a celestial or mundane source? It was difficult to say from whence that light came. But that dim light allowed us to see the expanding dark spot in the center of the nest….Sea turtles arising from the depths of Mother Earth.

On the sea turtle patrol walk Sunday morning I listened and heard a 15 cascade and crawling with the stethoscope. A cascade or waterfall is a sound produced when sand fills in the space where an occupied egg was. When hatchlings break free of eggs, the rubbery shell collapses and sand fills it as babies crawl up.

How do they know to crawl up? It’s dark underground. Perhaps its the air flow…but that’s at least 12 inches above the eggs…maybe as deep as 24 inches. A mystery.

Team members who listened throughout the day heard sounds of hatching and crawling. When I arrived a little after 7 pm last night, my teammate Cathy said they were busy with the sounds we like to hear–cascades. Those cascades….those contractions of labor…indicate potential hatching.

At one point, I knelt down inside the tarp to listen with the scope and centered myself. As they worked beneath the sand, I envisioned a wave of love surrounding them, protecting them. I also sent a message with my thoughts….there’s a LOT of rain coming. If you’re ready to hatch this would be the perfect evening. It’s dark, the sand is fluffy and easy to crawl in and people are here to make sure you make it safely to the water….but it’s up to you sweet friends.

I listened again to the nest a little before 10pm and heard almost constant cascades after Cathy and I had heard shallow, loud cascades and deep, quieter cascades all evening. This indicated to me that the entire nest was working, not just a few turtles. When I heard non-stop, loud cascades I let other team members know our babies were about to make an appearance. A quick check with the red light showed a large V-shaped depression in the sand…another sign of eminent hatching.

Over the next two hours one dark spot…a nose, perhaps breathing the first breath of unobstructed, fresh air…became two, three…four….too many to count. Finally, in the very dim light we saw a slowly-growing darkness. The visitors, excited by the possible hatching, probably began to doubt us. We would relay the visuals…”there’s a dark blob…sea turtles are coming”…thirty minutes later….”the dark spot is getting bigger…think it’s gonna be a boil”…..thirty minutes later….”I know you don’t believe us but it looks like they are waiting to come together, it’s gonna be a boil”….thirty minutes later. And so on.

Kids got tired. Some folks gave up and went back to their beach homes. Who in their right mind would sit on a beach waiting for something that may not happen? Those of us that volunteer know what that slow-growing dark spot is and what will happen…at some point…maybe hours later….but we know….we know.

On one of my checks I knelt to the side of the light-shielding tarp and listened with only my senses. Ever so softly I heard their chirping. I had heard this through the stethoscope before but never when they were on the surface. The chirping is their way of communicating with each other while in their eggs. As the gathering of hatchlings reached over a foot in diameter and their bodies could be seen layered on top of each other, they chirped softly to each other. What were they saying? Was it encouragement? A gathering of siblings. So sweet was that faint sound….so precious. Tears form as I write this hours later, reflecting on the miracle of sea turtles…of all life.

On my last check at the nest before they were born, I knelt once again outside the tarp and could hear the boiling sound of sea turtle hatchlings crawling over each other and erupting in one massive contraction to the star-lit air. Bioluminescence illuminated the waves as they rolled onto shore welcoming the babies. Stars peeked through the clouds. A soft wind wrapped around all those human souls who stayed to witness the birth of 105 sea turtle souls into the sea.

*Could this mama imagine the babies that would emerge? Photograph of a sea turtle release after rehab. Photo taken with permission by USFW under conditions that do not harm sea turtles.*

I minded the nest as Cathy, Nancy, Rick, Matt and Jim observed the beautiful transformation of little earthlings to sea beings that, with good fortune, will return in 20 years or so lay their own nests.

After the parade of active babies made their way to the Gulf, I listened once again to a cascade and scratching. Another baby was working to make its way up and out into the night, into a future made brighter by the work Share the Beach volunteers do to give our sea turtle friends a chance at survival.

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Share the Beach was started because hatchlings were consistently crawling toward porch lights and street lights rather than the sea. We walk the beaches of Alabama May 1st to September 1st looking for female sea turtle tracks. The tracks lead us to nests which we mark and get a GPS coordinates and other data. Around 50 days later (it varies dependent on heat/moisture) hatchlings begin to hatch under the sand. We then erect black tarps to help with disorientation from artificial light sources. It takes three or four days for babies to crawl through sand and empty egg shells to the surface. We monitor nests with stethoscopes and look for visual changes in the surface often. At night, the usual time for loggerheads to hatch, we attend the nests for as long as they are active. Sometimes visitors to our beaches get to observe the amazing sea turtle boils. If you are staying at the beach please be mindful of a few things: Please turn off all porch lights and keep indoor lightning low; don’t use bright flashlights around nests that are tarped and never when hatchlings are present or about to hatch…this is disorienting to the turtles and draws predators to the hatching area; remain respectful of the hard work turtles are doing to be born and keep horseplay to a minimum and noise levels low.

Special note from last night’s hatching….thank you Cathy, Nancy, Rick, Jim and Matt for such awesome teamwork! And to our visitors who helped us hold a space of respect and love for the hatchlings….THANK YOU! And….to those precious babies who lit up our night and our hearts….thank you for reminding us of the sacred cycles of life, the wisdom of our instincts and the ability to care and love beyond ourselves.

Comfortably Numb

By Simone Lipscomb | August 5, 2016

“Hello, Is anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?….

This is not how I am. I have become comfortably numb. I have become comfortably numb.”

Acres upon acres of wild backcountry are being cleared at Gulf State Park. It’s not just the width of another trail they are clearing. It’s wide swaths of trees, underbrush, ground cover….gone. Little-by-little this jewel of a state park is being turned into a manicured, groomed city park that continues to push wildlife into smaller blocks of land.

First it was condos. The building boom hit right after Hurricane Frederic in 1979. It’s good for the economy, they said. It will generate jobs, they said. No, we can’t turn the beach front into a national wildlife refuge, there’s too much money to be made, they said. And so we witnessed the taming of the shoreline. Concrete, glass and landscaping that demands hideous amounts of water to survive.

Now that the beaches are nearly full of monuments to human-demand-for-more, the governor of the State of Alabama is building a monument to himself on the state park beach. Drive by and see his legacy…the mountain of sand…the machinery….all hail one of the biggest crooks in the history of Alabama politics.

*It’s not just the new trail they are clearing. They leave a buffer of a few trees along the trail and most everything else is being cleared.*

Off of Rosemary Dune Trail in the backcountry machines are busy in Gulf State Park. It’s not new trails that concern me, it’s the ridiculous amount of sacred land being cleared to make it appear more manicured? More city-park-like? There’s no reason for this kind of reckless behavior. None. And they are using restoration funds to do this?

*The clearing isn’t confined to the trail development (shown here) and clearing, along country road 2 near the tee intersection they are clearing massive amounts of land….prime wildlife habitat.*

I stopped to photograph the destruction and as soon as I unclipped from my pedals Sarah McLachian began singing, through my ear buds, the Prayer of Saint Francis….”Make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.”

It wasn’t just tears….it was sobs of grief. Where will the wild things go when humans bent on molding nature to their image and intention manicure it beyond recognition of what it once was?

And we sit by….and allow this destruction to continue. Pink Floyd nailed it….”We have become comfortably numb.”

Magic of Life

By Simone Lipscomb | August 3, 2016

I’ve often said that photography is my ‘excuse’ to connect with nature. When looking through my artist eyes I go beyond what’s in front of me to the essence of life expressing itself…through a sunset, a sunrise, whale eye….dolphin smile. When I compose an image its as if something from out there calls me to expose the magic of life through a photograph.

When I allow my mind and heart to be open, connect with life around me and approach it with a spirit of playfulness, the connection happens effortlessly. I lose myself in an experience of oneness and feel a part of life.

Several years ago a group of us took a weekend to photograph the Smoky Mountains. On the final day I was standing with my friends photographing the sunset. A guy walked up to me and asked what my settings were. I shoot with manual settings of aperture and shutter speed but I couldn’t tell him without looking at my camera because I don’t work with a formula or figure it out with my left brain. I play with the settings, beginning where I suspect the exposure will create the feeling I want. After the initial shot, adjustments are made according to the mood I want to capture.

Nature calls me to connect for my own balance and healing. I show up, connect with an open heart and simply play in hope that in some way I can translate the magic of life.

Stars and Sea

By Simone Lipscomb | July 29, 2016

The Big Dipper hangs at the northern horizon as I push up from the white sand. The stethoscope is still in my ears after it transmitted progress of the baby sea turtles hatching, scratching and making their way up…up…up from the darkness to the starlight.

With no moon to dim them, the stars are spectacular and are like jewels in the velvet sky. They seem to twinkle into infinity as the Milky Way winds its way through Scorpio and other constellations hanging gracefully over the Gulf of Mexico.

It is a perfect night on the beach. Music of the waves gently lapping against the shore is the background as the babies work diligently underground, in that dark Unknown. With instinct beyond human understanding, they tear and rip the rubbery egg shells and begin to crawl up…up…up to an unknown Source of Life.

Even when a nest hatched early and unattended and most babies crawled toward porch lights or were dispatched by crabs and coyotes and we hunted with visitors and ran and followed tracks with great sadness….there is still a sense of quiet peace. Nature isn’t always cuddly.

I now sit and listen with the stethoscope to the newly born working at the neatly tarped and trenched nest, ready for their imminent arrival, protected from lights that would surely draw them astray. Waves roll onto the shore. A shooting star flashes overhead. The warm breeze caresses my face. I am alone but only isolated from other humans. Everything here pushes in and tells me it’s okay.

The blood of dead hatchlings, killed by ghost crabs, is still on my hands…is on the hands of all humans as we alter and change wild habitat to claim it for ourselves.

Secrets of the Dawn

By Simone Lipscomb | July 24, 2016

*The sky and sea as I finished my sea turtle patrol…just a little over an hour before this the sky was filled with outrageous color.*

Who could imagine that a little over an hour ago the rather common, blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds had been a blazing inferno of color? Or that the gentle, rolling waves had revealed bottlenose dolphins within a few feet of the shore. The sea and sky gave no hint of their dawn magic but I carried it deeply within, in the space where visceral memories of profound joy reside.

The large cloud overhead appeared white before the sunrise. There was only a hint of color in the eastern sky as the light grew in intensity. The puffy, enormous cloud that hung over the beach where I emerged from my car seemed to grab light greedily and use it to transform itself with each passing moment.

The walking sea turtle patrol rarely disappoints in variety of cloud and colors. This morning it seemed I was walking in beauty generated by a deity whose intention was to create spontaneous laughter from my depths. The colors and intensity of light were quite ridiculous. In a good way.

I have learned over the years to turn around often to watch for changes in the sky. In the west, away from the growing light, that one cloud appeared to glow with fire of the heavens that was more spectacular than the colors of the rising sun in the east. How can the sky look like this, I wondered.

There were great numbers of fish boiling in the water near the shoreline and following them was bottlenose dolphins rolling and pushing their sleek, dark gray bodies through the gentle surf. Everywhere I looked there were dorsal fins in pairs…mothers and babies.

*The color isn’t manipulated here. My iPhone may not have gotten the color perfect, but it was close to how I saw it. I didn’t change it at all while processing it.*

Then there was the rainbow cloud and by that time I was rather intoxicated by it all. Fortunately there was nobody else on the beach or I might have been reported as a wandering, raving drunk.

*Rainbow cloud behind one of our sea turtle nests.*

I looked for mother turtle tracks, checked every previously laid and marked nest in this section, and listened with a stethoscope to babies hatching and working hard in their process of being born and climbing into the light of this world. And the sky blazed with brilliance and a rainbow glowed overhead while dolphins feasted within a few feet of the sand where I stood. How could I not feel spontaneous, outrageous joy?

After I finished the section of beach I patrol and turned around to walk back, I allowed my mind to wander. Unless I was willing to experience the blackness before the dawn, I would never know the beauty of light. Isn’t that true in life? Unless we are willing to journey into darkness we will never experience the magic of light that is deep within us…that treasure of magnificent light.