Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Hardworking Honu

At Turtle Beach we saw several Hawaiian green sea turtles (known as honu) bouncing in the waves and basking on the shore. They are lovely to watch, especially because the revival of this species has been such a big success story in environmental conservation. As we were watching the turtles in the water I wondered aloud whether they simply allowed themselves to wash up on the beach now and then, or whether they plan their rest periods. My answer came moments later when a youngster made its first very deliberate attempt at coming ashore. It missed, tried again, missed again, tried again and finally succeeded. Between attempts it would stick it's head out of the water to reorient itself, and it started each attempt from slightly south of the previous one. Fascinating stuff!

8 comments:

Brandy said...

WOW! Look at all the lovely ladies!! How thrilling that you could see them so closely!

Funder said...

ohhh, that's cool! Sea turtles always remind me of that Roald Dahl short story.

Anonymous said...

That is so awesome! I can't wait for our trip!

allhorsestuff said...

That is stunning to see...bet you were breathless with it all!
KK

The Border Collies said...

TOITLES! Yer so lucky!

Black Jack's Carol said...

Okay, I fully admit to a twinge of envy:) So does Black Jack. There was snow here this morning and she wasn't impressed. Neither was I! (Fortunately, it's still okay for biking

I LOVE those turtles. I used to watch much, much smaller ones under the little bridge at Jericho Park. Fascinating stuff and so generous of that one fellow to give you the answer to your question.

The Border Collies said...

Sarah - have you seen this?

It's a camel doing dressage!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnsWQ4kNG-w

dp said...

Haha--dressage camel. Too funny! Thanks for the link, Food Lady.