By Capt. Chris Thalmann, Contributing Writer
Tourism season continues – and judging by the traffic and car horns getting out of our neighborhood every morning, it looks to be another good one in The Palm Beaches. Hopefully folks will take a break from the noise to go explore some of our beautiful outdoor natural areas!
“Osprey Alley” is a good example. It’s a 3.5 mile stretch of the Intracoastal Waterway with at least 12 active osprey nests. Chicks are now on many of these nests, and with most of the adult birds counted as year-round residents, it’ll be really interesting to see just how many year-round ospreys this area can support.
Palm Beach County hosts a wide variety of year-round and migratory wildlife. Big spikes in the number of migrating species, including sharks and sea turtles, make April one of the most exciting months for wildlife spotting and eco-tourism.
Large schools of migrating baitfish boost our nearshore shark population by thousands this time of year. Many of the sharks along coastal beaches will be spinner sharks. At 5-7 feet long, spinners are aerial acrobats, ambushing their prey from below and then leaping out of the water with their catch. Bring binoculars, a camera, a comfy chair and some patience. You don’t need to be fishing, but you will need to look for the big moving shadows of baitfish schools. Find a good sized school at the right time and settle in to watch one of Florida’s most impressive natural wildlife shows. It’s absolutely worth a trip to the beach to check out the action!
Northern Palm Beach County is also home to one of the most productive sea turtle nesting beaches in the world. Turtle nesting season began on March 1st and continues until October 31st. Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) in Juno Beach mapped 21,000 turtle nests in 2019, with an estimated 1,200,000 hatchlings on just 10 miles of beach. That’s a lot of turtles!
Right on schedule this season, several leatherback sea turtles nested during the first week of March. Among our local nesting species, leatherbacks tend to nest the earliest, with loggerhead turtles and green sea turtles dominating the latter part of nesting season.
There’s no way to know what the 2020 turtle nesting season will hold. It’s encouraging to have seen a number of large turtles offshore in February and quite a few smaller turtles inshore in early March.
This season, Aqua Adventure Tours is partnering with Loggerhead Marinelife Center to offer offshore turtle tours to the general public. These family-friendly trips will be led by LMC wildlife biologists and are a fun way to experience one of the wonders of nature up-close!
Turtle tours start April 24th and may be booked by emailing: info@aquaadventuretours.com. Proceeds help further LMC’s conservation, education and research work, so come join us!
Until next time…get outdoors and enjoy!
Captain Chris Thalmann
Owner/Aqua Adventure Tours, Inc. • aquaadventuretours.com