A Sea Turtle picture a day #46

Welcome back to a Sea Turtle Picture A Day. Today we are heading down to Mexico to the state of Colima. I was volunteering at a sea turtle hatchery there last year and had the opportunity to see some amazing things. One of my favorites is to watch the hatchlings as they head down the beach towards the ocean. It is believed that some how the hatchling is imprinted by this process and in 10 to 15 years she will crawl up this very beach and lay eggs.
This picture is of a Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) hatchling making its way towards the ocean
This picture was taken with a 60 mm lens
See you tomorrow

A Sea Turtle picture a day #45

Welcome back to A Sea Turtle Picture A Day. Today we are heading north of the border to Vancouver Canada. This picture is of a Leatherback Sea Turtle(Dermochelys coriacea) Which is the rarest of the sea turtles and also the only species that does not have a hard shell. Ttodd Jones is the only researcher in the world that had been able to raise this turtle in captivity for more than 2 years.
In this picture Ttodd is moving this turtle from one tank to another.
In an upcoming issue of National Geographic The May issue. This turtle and more of its species are featured in an article about the Leatherback sea turtle. Unfortunately my picture is not in the magazine.
This picture was taken with a 28-200 mm lens
See you tomorrow

A Sea Turtle picture a day #44

Welcome back to A Sea Turtle Picture A Day. Today we are going to head back underwater and over to the west side of the Big Island of Hawaii. This picture is of a Green Sea turtle(Chelonia mydas) that was resting under this overhang underwater. It was not at all disturbed by my taking its picture. It actually seemed curious in what I was doing. My favorite thing about Sea Turtles is watching the way they interact with their surroundings and also each other.
This picture was taken with a 12-24 mm lens
See you tomorrow

A Sea Turtle picture a day #43

Welcome back to a Sea Turtle Picture A Day. Today we are heading back over the Pacific ocean to the Big Island Of Hawaii. This picture is of a Green Sea Turtle(Chelonia mydas) resting on the rocks. This particular turtle has a (TDR) Time Depth Recorder attached to its shell. A TDR records the amount of time a turtle spends underwater and the depth that it swims to.
This turtle was part of a test to try to find out more of what the local population of turtles that live along this particular section of the coast do with their time spent in the water
This picture was taken with a 70-200 mm lens
See you tomorrow

A Sea Turtle picture a day #42

Welcome back to A Sea Turtle Picture A Day. Today we are heading south of the border to Colima Mexico. Last summer I spent 2 weeks volunteering at a turtle hatchery.My duties included cleaning the tanks every morning helping the staff count and bury eggs that had been collected the night before and releasing hatching's that had hatched.
This picture is of a few Green Sea Turtles(Chelonia mydas) hatching's that have just hatched
This picture was taken with a 60 mm lens
See you tomorrow

A Sea Turtle picture a day #41

Welcome back to A Sea Turtle PIcture A Day. Today we are heading back underwater and over to the Big Island of Hawaii. This photo is of two Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas). The one that is coming out from under the ledge was resting there and the other was looking for a place to rest. The one leaving went up to the surface for a breath of air and the one doing the swim by then replaced the one that went for a breath under the ledge.
I is always so much fun to hang out underwater with these awesome animals and watch how they interact with each other.
This picture was taken with a 15mm lens
See you tomorrow.

A Sea Turtle picture a day #40

Welcome back to A Sea Turtle Picture A Day. Today we are traveling down to The British Virgin Islands to Joshias Beach. This young boy became interested in me digging a hole in the sand. What he didn't know when I started was that I was digging up a Leatherback Sea turtle nest that had hatched the day before. I was doing this to count the eggs that had hatched as well as the ones that did not. I was also looking for any hatching's that were still buried in the nest. We found this hatchling near the bottom of the nest. After this picture was taken the hatchling was allowed to crawl down the beach to the ocean.
This picture was taken with a 70-200 mm lens
See you tomorrow