GREEN TURTLES and SAND DUNES

 Hi

Recently the rangers went up to Cape Croker. We took along some of the traditional owning family with us. While there, we inspected a mimosa infestation (Class A weed) which is located behind some sand dunes.

Below we return from inspecting mimosa to climb the sand dune. The east coastline of Croker Island is beyond the dunes. These sand dunes have been created by years of consistent easterly winds which we receive through the middle of the year - sometimes referred to as the 'trade winds'. 

Here you can see that the dunes are slowly but steadily moving inland, covering all in its path - including this paperbark tree.

The mimosa infestation is on the right in the far distance.

A big sand dune, the wind leaving it's ever-changing patterns on the sand, under a big blue sky with the 'song of the sea' in the background.

Returning back home we travelled along the beach. With some concern, we noticed four separate green turtle tracks leaving the water to lay eggs however all of them returned to the water without laying any eggs.  

Increasingly we are noticing some turtles are climbing way up the beach to lay their eggs. This is not usual. Below, this turtle returned to the water without laying eggs after climbing a long way up the beach looking for suitable spot. 

And a similar story with this turtle.  

Marine scientists think this behaviour is partly due to rising sea levels. This is something we will have to monitor closely in the future.

The next blog post (following shortly) will have a short video of the swamp and mimosa mentioned earlier in this blog post.

Cheers Bryan