Roof birds hatch; turtle gets lucky

One to go COURTESY PHOTO BY TONY AMOS Two of four killdeer chicks await the hatchiing of a third sibling. The fourth and last unhatched egg is not visible. The Saga of the Roof Birds continued: The story is almost complete, I think.

Every year killdeer (the bird George W. Bush bagged, mistaking it for a dove during his campaign for Texas governor in 1994) nest on the three-story high roof of the main UTMSI building. This year, on their second attempt, I managed to find the nest from the time that the first egg was laid to the hatching of all four chicks. Now, lest you criticize me for disturbing one of nature’s vulnerable events, I go up on the roof daily to measure the evaporation and the killdeer’s method of defense and protection of its nest and young is to lure a predator away by making a lot of noise, pretending to be injured and cleverly pulling attention away from the babies by running, stumbling and calling as it moves rapidly yards from the nest.

Tony Amos is a research fellow at The University of Texas Marine Science Institute and director of the Animal Rehabilitation Keep (ARK). I couldn’t even open the door to the roof before the parent bird made her move. I took all photos quickly, and from a distance, and went along with the ruse so she knew I was a dumb predator.

The table shows the chronological sequencer of events and is self-explanatory. I have to assume that the babies were successfully persuaded to leave the roof (Wheee!). I have not yet located them at ground level.

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Poor old Nub! (Not that Nub is by any means old, maybe only three years of age out of a potential 100 years!). Yet nub, a green sea turtle, was found by beachgoers at Marker 98 on Mustang Island Gulf beach three weeks ago encumbered by man-made debris that threatened to cut his long life very short. He was attached to a huge piece of fraying blue polypropylene rope, had fishing line wrapped so tightly around his right front limb that it had already destroyed the limb: All that was left was a bulbous mass of necrotic tissue. Not only that, but Nub had swallowed another length of green fishing twine that probably had a hook on it

The evidence An x-ray shows a hook, line and swivel swallowed by Nub, a green sea turtle while it is still in its gut, left, on June 26, and with the actual swivel hook and line expelled by Nub on Sunday, June 28, right. An X-ray taken by our consulting veterinarian Dr. Tim Tristan indeed showed that Nub had swallowed hook, line and swivel and on Sunday, Nub passed most of the line, the hook and the swivel.

Interestingly, the hook had lost its curl and barb, so it was fairly easy for it to pass through the gut. Two days before, this Nub’s nub literally fell off, leaving an already healing wound. Remarkable animal!

NUB If you look carefully at the x-ray photo you can see the acorn barnacles on his carapace, the loss of several bones in his right rear foot from an old fish bite, and the remarkably spiky-shaped bones that make up the underside shell called the plastron.

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Anyone interested in watching an Independence Day release of two large loggerhead turtles is invited to show up near Marker 35 on the beach about one mile south of Access Road 1 on Saturday, July 4.

The release will take place about 10 a.m.

Date	Days	Event	Remarks
	Elapsed
30 May	0	First Egg Laid	Parents lure me away from nest
01 June	2	Second Egg Laid
03 June	4	Third Egg Laid
05 June	6	Fourth Egg Laid
27 June	28	Two Chicks hatch	One in Nest, one outside, two eggs visible
28 June	29	Three Chicks hatch?	Can only see two chicks and one egg
29 June	30	All Chicks hatch – empty nest	Chicks still on roof – Parents Agitated
30 June	31	Silence	The babies must be off the roof