Charlotte Harbor AP staff started July rookery surveys in Lemon Bay AP last week. The peak nesting season is winding down in this Aquatic Preserve, but there are still parent-dependent chicks in the nest, resulting in some very adorable observations. Brown pelican chicks’ downy feathers are making way for adult feathers with a heart shape forming on their wings. CHAP staff also observed an American Oystercatcher chick on one of their islands.

One month following the mangrove planting event with the help of the Coastal Conservation Association, Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserve staff visited Terrapin Key to see how the new mangrove plantings are faring. While on site, staff mapped the planting area, took photo points and measured the height of randomly selected red, black and white mangroves. Overall, the plantings are doing very well, and no mortalities were noted.

With a short week due to the holiday, Big Bend Seagrasses Aquatic Preserve was able to get in a day of fieldwork by heading out to Keaton Beach to monitor the seagrass where the 2023 urchin mass grazing event took place. In February 2023, an urchin bloom was reported off the coast of Keaton Beach. Staff began monitoring the urchin front and the seagrass response with monthly surveys.

Indian River Lagoon Aquatic Preserve (IRLAP) staff, under the direction of Emily Surmont, conducted biobox monitoring in the Indian River Lagoon as part of an on-going collaborative research project with the University of Florida, Florida Oceanographic Society and Smithsonian Marine Institute.

Dr. Serina Wittyngham from the University of North Florida and members of the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve staff selected sites to monitor the upland edge and transition zones of the marshes on the Guana Peninsula. This will be part of a long-term monitoring project that focuses on marsh migration into the uplands. Dr. Wittyngham also installed one of her plots.

Last week, Carrabelle Beach saw its first sea turtle activity of the season. Two Loggerhead crawls were reported to Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve's stewardship team, and we went out to assess them right away. We determined one was a false crawl, and one was a nest. Sea turtle nesting activity on Carrabelle Beach is rare.

Tampa Bay Aquatic Preserve staff worked with University of South Florida hydrologists to set up water quality monitoring instruments on a piling in Bishop Harbor (Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve). This datasonde station will provide ongoing water quality for one of the least-developed areas of Tampa Bay.  Such data can be valuable when compared with similar data from other, more urbanized, locations in the same watershed.

Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve hosted a seining event with the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind (FSDB) in St. Augustine. Education Coordinator Josephine Spearman led a group of visiting summer campers from FSDB to pull a seine net through Guana Lake collecting species of fish, crabs and other organisms. The visiting campers finished the day with a tour of the reserve’s Visitor Center.

Staff at the St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve had the opportunity to welcome a summer camp this past Wednesday! The art camp, hosted by the nonprofit Joe Center for the Arts, visited the Buffer Preserve to work on creating masterpieces that combined nature with printmaking and sketching. Students arrived early in the morning and began a drawing assignment to get them thinking about what they might discover at the Buffer Preserve.

On the mornings of June 18 and 19, we had the privilege of joining the Department’s Division of Recreation and Park’s (DRP) beach mice expert, Alice Bard, on her Anastasia Island Beach Mice surveys.