BRADENTON BEACH – The strong winds, high tides and storm surge of then-Tropical Storm Debby were too much for the Island’s least tern colony on Aug. 4-5. A visit by Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring volunteers on Aug. 5 indicated all birds had left the area to seek shelter elsewhere.
“The Bradenton Beach colony flourished for 88 days and produced 16 chicks,” according to an Aug. 9 press release from Turtle Watch Executive Director Kristen Mazzarella. “Nine of those chicks fledged, which means they could fly but their parents still provided food. In contrast, the 2021 least tern colony produced only two fledged birds.”
The colony produced 29 nests, 18 of which were either abandoned or predated by birds or animals. There were 16 chicks produced in the remaining 11 nests. Four of the birds were banded and numbered.
Least terns are a threatened species in Florida.
Mazzarella wrote that the success of the 2024 colony can be attributed to partnerships with the City of Bradenton Beach and Manatee County officials and law enforcement, the Florida Audubon Society, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, residents of the Anna Maria Island Club and volunteers from the Manatee County Audubon Society and Turtle Watch.
“Our thanks to Shorebird Coordinator Kathy Doddridge who managed these partnerships, took actions to mitigate predation and educated beachgoers on a daily basis. We look forward to applying the knowledge gained to next year’s least tern colony,” she wrote.
Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring Director Kristen Mazzarella said the past week has been a strong one for local sea turtles and shorebirds.
“There was a great increase in the number of (turtle) crawls over last week,” she said, with the number of nests increasing from six to 48.
A colony of least terns also is doing well, according to Mazzarella.
“The number of nests in the colony has increased to 12 this week” from four last week, she said of the imperiled shorebirds.
She reminded beachgoers to fill holes in the sand and level sandcastles before leaving the beach, so sea turtles do not get trapped, and steer clear of the posted bird nesting area.
On Tuesday, May 28, Turtle Watch will present a Turtle Tracks and Shorebird Facts presentation at noon at Holmes Beach City Hall, 5801 Marina Drive.
The presentation is free and open to the public.
TURTLE TIPS
During sea turtle season, May 1 – Oct. 31, follow these tips to help turtles:
• Turn off lights visible from the beach and close blinds from sundown to sunrise; lights confuse nesting sea turtles and may cause them to go back to sea and drop their eggs in the water, where they won’t hatch. Light can also attract hatchlings away from the water.
• Don’t use flashlights, lanterns or camera flashes on the beach at night.
• Remove all beach chairs and other objects from the sand from sundown to sunrise; they can deter sea turtles from nesting and disorient hatchlings.
• Fill in the holes you dig in the sand before leaving the beach; they can trap nesting and hatching sea turtles, which cannot live long out of the water. You might also accidentally dig into an unmarked nest. To report large holes or other turtle obstacles, call:
• City of Anna Maria code enforcement — 941-708-6130, ext. 111.
• City of Bradenton Beach code enforcement — 941-778-1005, ext. 227.
• City of Holmes Beach code enforcement — 941-778-0331, ext. 260.
• Level sandcastles before leaving the beach; they can block hatchlings from the water.
• Don’t use balloons, wish lanterns or fireworks; they litter the beach and Gulf, and turtles can ingest the debris.
• Do not trim trees and plants that shield the beach from lights.
• Never touch a sea turtle; it’s the law. If you see people disturbing turtles, call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Wildlife Alert hotline at 888-404-FWCC (3922).
Source: Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring
NESTING NEWS
Turtle nests laid: 48 (Record: 544 in 2019)
False crawls: 39 (Record: 831 in 2010)
Nests hatched: 0 (Record: 453 in 2022)
Hatchlings hatched: 0 (Record: 35,850 in 2022)
Hatchling disorientations: 0
Adult disorientations: 0
Source: Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring
One of the things that makes the Suncoast special is our seabirds. Who hasn’t been stirred by the sight or song of a bird? The haunting sound of a whippoorwill signaling the arrival of spring, the colorful plumage of a spoonbill and the elaborate rituals of herons, terns and other seabirds in breeding season? The graceful flight of a formation of black skimmers, their bills tracing paths across the water’s surface at sunset?
Birds not only inspire and uplift us, they also provide a significant boost to Florida’s economy and are a major reason the state ranks as one of the nation’s top wildlife viewing destinations.
With all that birds provide us, it’s alarming to learn that species-wide, we’ve lost the equivalent of one in four birds in the last 50 years. The major reason is loss of habitat and the seabirds we treasure are particularly vulnerable due to the loss of mangroves for nesting. Many seabirds also lay their eggs and raise their young just above a barrier island’s high-water line.
Birds need our help and there are specific things that anglers and outdoor enthusiasts alike can do to help them. One of the most heartbreaking things anyone can experience is a dead or dying bird garroted in the mangroves by an unsuspecting fisherman’s line.
Anglers who fish the coastal waters of Florida will invariably come into contact with the seabirds that inhabit the estuaries of our state. Often, that encounter is deadly to seabirds if anglers don’t know the basics of avoiding contact with or caring for hooked birds. Birds live here, it’s their home, and they aid savvy anglers as they search for food. The birds get into trouble when they come in contact with discarded fishing line in the mangroves, or they take line to their roosts after becoming hooked.
The incidence of anglers hooking birds can be reduced or eliminated by following a few simple rules. First, never feed birds. This trains birds to look for a handout and leads them to often unsuspecting anglers. Second, while you’re fishing, be aware of birds that might be eyeing your bait or lure. It’s easy to pull it out of harm’s way at the last second before a bird dives on it.
If you do hook a bird, make sure that you fight them just like you would a trophy fish to prevent them from breaking the line. Trailing line can be a death sentence for the birds when they return to their roost at night. Care should be taken when handling birds due to their fragile, hollow bones and sharp beaks. First, place a towel over the bird’s head. This will calm them and protect the angler from sharp bills. You can then cautiously remove hooks and unwind line before releasing them.
An angler may never realize the tragic results of careless line management. – Rusty Chinnis | Sun
During nesting season (peaking here May through June) birds are particularly vulnerable, especially those that nest on the beaches of our barrier islands. It’s crucial that humans avoid breeding colonies on public beaches and especially the few places designated as off-limits because of their critical nesting potential. Locally, protected areas like Egmont Key and Passage Key are often threatened by unsuspecting and careless beachgoers who endanger eggs and young hatchlings. The birds don’t have a voice and it’s left to those of us that appreciate and benefit from them to be their advocates.
If while fishing you see a hooked or tangled bird in an active rookery, don’t approach them during nesting season. Our well-meaning intentions can cause more harm than good by causing startled young birds to fall from the nest.
Taking care of the environment that feeds our passion is everyone’s responsibility. Follow these simple guidelines: be aware of the presence of sea birds, take care in handling them, and never feed birds. If you see a bird in distress and it’s not nesting season, you can free them. If they swim or fly away on their own that’s all you’ll need to do. If you believe they are too weak to recover on their own, contact one of the local organizations that rescue and rehabilitate sea birds. On Anna Maria Island you can call Wildlife Inc. at 941-778-6324. To our south call Save Our Seabirds on City Island in Sarasota at 941-388-3010. Audubon’s Coastal Island Sanctuaries has an informative website and can be reached by calling 813-794-3784. You can also join Sarasota Bay Watch’s Annual Fishing Line Cleanup in the fall.
Birds of all kinds are a critical component and bellwether of a healthy environment. Let’s all work together to create a vibrant and safe place – for the birds.
Shorebird nesting season on Anna Maria Island ends this month with only two least tern chicks surviving out of 30 – cats preyed on the rest, according to photographer Kathy Doddridge, a volunteer with Audubon Florida and Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring. The two chicks, banded for identification and tracking by Florida Audubon, were a product of the first least tern colony on the Island since May 2016. Least terns, a threatened species in Florida, laid 64 nests this year on AMI.
ANNA MARIA ISLAND – Tropical Storm Elsa washed over the Island on July 6 and 7, taking some shorebird eggs and chicks with it, and soaking some sea turtle nests in the sand, perhaps for too long.
But Suzi Fox, director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring, remains optimistic.
The first sea turtle nest of the season hatched last week, producing 77 hatchlings.
“Water came up over many nests,” she said. “Are we upset about it? No, it’s nature. Many of those nests will still hatch. Turtles and birds have been at this a lot longer than we have.”
Each June or July, a storm hits the Island, but nesting always resumes and sometimes picks up speed, she said.
With the recent beach renourishment, “Manatee County has done everything they could to have the best nesting beach in Florida,” Fox said. “We’re still going to get washovers. That’s why sea turtles nest up to three times a season.”
While about 25% of sea turtle nests on the Island were lost last week, “The girls are continuing to nest,” she said, including a rare green turtle that nested July 9, only the third green turtle so far this nesting season, which began on May 1. The rest of the turtle nests on the Island are loggerhead sea turtles.
This sea turtle egg washed up in a canal in Bimini Bay after Tropical Storm Elsa passed over Anna Maria Island. – Cindy Lane | Sun
Among the shorebirds, only least terns are nesting this year – no black skimmers, Fox said.
The storm surge on the Gulf of Mexico beaches inundated the least tern colony, she said. While all 120 bird parents survived, only two of 15 chicks survived.
“Now that the water has receded, the adults are back on new eggs,” she said, adding that five newly-hatched chicks have been documented since the storm.
Volunteers do the counting and nest identification, but numbers of volunteers are down from more than 100 to about 20 due to COVID-19, which caused Fox to decide last year to have a few volunteers use ATVs to monitor nests rather than have dozens walk sections of the beach, risking contact with curious beachgoers.
On an ATV, “They can find 20 nests in one day,” she said. “On a day of walking, they can find maybe one.”
Turtle nesting season ends Oct. 31. Bird nesting season is active through the end of August.
Snowy plovers are a threatened species in Florida, as are black skimmers, which also are on the Island for nesting season. Other threatened species that nest on local beaches are the American oystercatcher and the least tern. Threatened species are one step away from endangered status.
Sandpipers scurry for their evening snack at sunset. – Cindy Lane | Sun
From April 15-21, beachgoers will see Turtle Watch ATVs driving carefully up and down the beaches looking for signs of nesting, so that they can stake off nesting areas to protect the birds, which are easily frightened off their nests – sometimes for good – by people who get too close.
If birds are screeching nearby, you are too close, Fox said, adding that some birds defend their territory with the best weapon they have – bird droppings.
To everything there is a season (tern, tern, tern) – a flock of royal terns frequents the north end of Anna Maria Island at Bean Point, overlooking Egmont Key at the start of nesting season. – Cindy Lane | Sun
Kid initiatives
To keep the beaches safer for birds and sea turtles, which will begin nesting in late April or early May, Turtle Watch volunteers will be picking up plastic beach toys abandoned on the beach and placing them in toy lending boxes at the two public beaches, Manatee and Coquina, for people to use.
“Hopefully, people will use them instead of buying more plastic and leaving it on the beach,” Fox said, adding that the toys will be cleaned regularly.
Beachgoers whose kids use the toys to dig holes in the sand should fill them in before they leave to keep people and sea turtles from falling in them, she said.
To teach local schoolkids about beach wildlife, Turtle Watch plans to lend “traveling teaching trunks” full of education information to local teachers, Fox said.
The organization also will be posting about 60 signs drawn by local schoolchildren on Island beaches instructing beachgoers about beach etiquette around wildlife, an alternative to “stay off the dunes” signs that people don’t seem to notice, she said.
Local children’s artwork also will be featured on notecards available for purchase at Tuesday Turtle Talks, scheduled for 10 a.m. at Waterline Marina Resort, 5325 Marina Drive, Holmes Beach, on April 10 and 24, May 8 and 22, June 5, 12, 19 and 26 and July 3, 10, 17, 24 and 31.
CORTEZ – Everyone who visits the beach can help sea turtles and shorebirds, Suzi Fox, director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring, told a packed house at the Florida Maritime Museum on Wednesday, March 21.
Fox and about 100 volunteers monitor the Island’s beaches each morning from May 1 to Oct. 31, following turtle tracks to nests, which are marked with stakes and tape and excavated after hatching to determine how many hatchlings were in the nest.
The stakes are placed far enough apart that an adult mother turtle can fit in between them, because turtles do not notice stakes on turtle or bird nests, she said, adding that when a turtle ventures into a staked shorebird nesting area, Turtle Watch does not stake the turtle nest separately, to avoid disturbing the birds.
Suzi Fox, director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring, talks to a full house of wildlife lovers at the Florida Maritime Museum. – Cindy Lane | Sun
Fox showed visitors a video of Eliza Ann, a loggerhead sea turtle that was satellite tagged after nesting on Coquina Beach on June 20, 2017. Sponsored by Waterline Marina Resort in the Sea Turtle Conservancy’s Tour de Turtles race, which tracks where and how far turtles swim, Eliza Ann nested four times on local beaches last season, once at Coquina and three times on the north end, she said.
For Fox, that proves the long-held theory that nesting turtles return to the beaches, although not necessarily the exact spot, where they hatched.
Last year, the Island had a record 488 turtle nests, some of which laid eggs on the bay side of the Island. Anna Maria Island is the only island in Florida where sea turtles nest on the bay side, she said.
The biggest problems for turtles on Anna Maria Island are lighting that is not turtle friendly and wish lanterns, Fox said.
In very bright areas, a cage is placed over unhatched nests to trap hatchlings before they can be disoriented away from the water and toward the street by lights. The hatchlings are later released at night, after they have calmed down, Fox said, adding that – like infants – they often calm down after a ride in the car. Bad lighting also can disorient nesting mother turtles.
Information for waterfront homeowners on turtle-friendly lights is available at www.myfwc.com.
Wish lanterns have metal and wood pieces that are slow to biodegrade and can injure turtles and birds, she said, asking people to find another way to celebrate events.
Turtle Watch also participates in a stranding network; turtles can become cold-stunned in winter and need reviving, and fishermen sometimes tangle turtles in their fishing line, cut the line, and bring turtles in for rehabilitation.
Since turtles and birds share the beach, Turtle Watch began monitoring shorebirds in 2006, Fox said, including snowy plovers, least terns, black skimmers and oystercatchers, some of which are imperiled.
As they prepare to nest, fattening themselves up and starting to pair off, Fox will be surveying their numbers in coming weeks.
As bird and turtle seasons approach, the organization will be posting signs on the beaches drawn by schoolchildren warning people about beach etiquette around wildlife, making notecards for sale with kids’ drawings, and working on the “Skip the Straws” and “Darker Skies, Darker Beaches” campaigns to raise awareness about littering and beach lighting.
Sea turtles and shorebirds have survived hurricanes for centuries, and Hurricane Irma damaged, but did not decimate, Anna Maria Island’s turtle and bird populations.
“We lost stakes to 35 turtle nests, but believe eggs from half of those are still in the ground unmarked,” while the remainder washed out into the Gulf of Mexico, said Suzi Fox, director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring.
More than 50 adult black skimmers and many juveniles are still on the beach near the 5400 block of Gulf Drive in Holmes Beach, she said.
The birds are resting in the wrack (seaweed), she said, which the county will not rake up in that area to avoid disturbing them.
“The birds are so tired (from the storm) that they barely move or sound off as we walk up to conduct our survey count,” she said, requesting that beachgoers remain at least 75 feet from birds to avoid making them flush, which uses precious energy.
Beachgoers also need to be cautious because sea turtle nests that no longer have stakes can hatch at any time.
With 37 known nests left to hatch before turtle season ends on Oct. 31, “We’re still in the game,” she said.
Nearly 24,500 turtle hatchlings emerged from the 488 nests laid on the Island this season, according to Turtle Watch.
