Hope for the Hatchlings
Notes from the Georgia Sea Turtle Center
To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
Hatchlings Haiku
turtle egg rescued
from the causeway oh dear Lord—
growing a strong shell
little arms and legs
swim and crawl in the clear tank
does he know I’m here?
she walks the causeway
hoping to find a turtle
who needs a ride home
hatchling on the edge
slides off into the water
all life is playful
On our last day here on Jekyll Island I have been thinking about our bike ride yesterday to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. What an inspiring place!
I spent a while watching Diamondback Terrapin Hatchlings in a tank, swimming and climbing on top of each other. They were a month or two old, getting strong enough for release back into the wild.
Volunteers from the center patrol the 8-mile Jekyll Island causeway during nesting season, looking for female turtles injured or killed by cars. Sometimes they can retrieve eggs and keep them alive in incubators, which is what happened for the hatchlings I was watching yesterday.
A book I’ve been reading helped me appreciate what goes on at the Sea Turtle Center. It’s Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The search for a Planetary Intelligence by James Bridle, published in 2022. Highly recommended.
This afternoon we will drive to Lake City, Florida, to visit Darlene’s sister Gail and her husband Dan.
Jekyll Island has been a refreshing retreat these past two days. I hope we have a chance to visit it again sometime.
Beautiful. Putting Jekyll island on my list. Your description of the hatchingls (spall) was precise, poetic, tender, capturing the wander and fragility of new life. I experienced this when I saw some eggs that were incubating at the museum of science in Boston hatch and the little chicks emerged from their shells. Wowsers. That's good to be alive isn't it? Thanks for your newsletter. I'm really enjoying it.