Sea Turtles.
Story
By Florence Verspecht
Once upon a time, on a lonely beach in the darkness of night, Mother Turtle arrives from the sea looking for a safe place to build her nest to protect her eggs which she will soon lay. She looks for a place that is not too close to the water, for she does not want the ocean to wash away her babies on the tide. Yet the place must not be too far from the shore, for she does not want her babies to be in danger for too long when they leave the nest. She must make a wise decision, for her tiny babies lives will depend on this. Mother Turtle knows that when the tide 'floods' it means the waters will come closest to shore, and when the tide 'ebbs' the waters are drawn away from the shore, just as if the sea is breathing, in and out, in and out.
As she searches for a place, she is glad that the full moon is high above in the night sky and shines much light for her work. The reason Mother Turtle builds her nest tonight is because tonight is a full moon, and when her babies hatch in two months there will be another full moon to provide light for them on their journey. She knows that the full moon means that the tide will be at its highest, and the waters will come close to the shore when her babies leave, and they will be carried far out to the safety of the sea. Every 28 days there is a full moon, and with this full moon comes the largest tides, or 'spring' tides. The smallest tides are 'neap' tides and these happen when there is a new moon, 14 days before the full moon. During neap tides the sky is darkest, and Mother Turtle's babies would not find the sea so easily if she had built the nest then.
As Mother Turtle climbs up the slope of the beach she wishes that all her babies will make it to the sea, through the sand and past the foam, but she knows the dangers that lie ahead for them. Firstly there will be the egg that they must break free of. This will be a hard struggle for her babies because they have not yet learnt how to use their little flippers and their turtle beak. But she knows they will learn quickly, because they are young, and learning comes easily to the young. They will then need to dig out of their nest, and battle the dunes of sand, which will look like mountains to them because they are still so small.
Once they have made it out to the open air, they must crawl as fast as their little flippers will take them down to the sea shore, because danger lurks once again, above them in the air. Sea birds will be flying over them, waiting to snatch the weakest of the little turtle babies away. Mother Turtle foresees all these dangers awaiting her children. It will be a battle for them, and she already knows that she will not be there with them to guide them along and take them to safety. That is why she does her best for them now, and uses all of her knowledge and wisdom so that they may have a fighting chance against the world.
Very soon Mother Turtle has chosen the place she will build her nest. She is confident this is a good beach for her children, because she herself was born here, and so was her mother, and her mother's mother, and all her female ancestors, all the way back to the first mother turtle. She knows that her baby girl turtles will also return to this beach, the beach of their ancestors, and will lay their eggs here too.
Mother Turtle starts to dig now, with her back flippers deep into the sand. She digs a round hole, about half a meter deep, which is quite an effort when she is already tired from her climb up the beach from the sea. Soon the hole has been dug and the nest is ready for her babies. She starts to lay her eggs in the hole, 10, 20, 30, no more! 50, 70, 100!! Wow, that is a lot of brothers and sisters!! Finally she has laid almost 200 eggs.
After this final effort, Mother Turtle gently pushes soft, loose sand into the nest, being so very careful not to damage her precious eggs whose leathery shell is fragile and soft. She works for almost an hour until she has protected and covered all of her offspring. Mother Turtle is clever and makes the nest look as if there were nothing there! She smooths the sand over and sculpts the nest so that no-one will know that her babies are there, waiting to emerge to the world. She has done a wonderful job, and taking a look at her nest she knows that her babies will be safe.
Now Mother Turtle must trust in her work and leave her babies to fend for themselves. She takes one final look at the place where they are hidden, nods in satisfaction to herself, and heads back out to the warm water of the sea.
For two months the little turtle babies grow inside their eggs and are 'incubated' by the warm sand. Luckily Mother Turtle's beach has dark sands, and this means the temperature of the sand is nice and warm for the babies. Finally the day has come for the babies to hatch and emerge into the big wide world. One night, when the moon is bright and full, the first little baby turtle starts to tear away the leathery skin of her shell with her snout. Wow, this is hard work! She tears and pushes and grunts and works with her little flippers, bumping her brothers and sisters eggs with all her activity. One by one her siblings are awake and also tearing away at their eggs. Baby Turtle is surprised to find there are not as many brothers and sisters as there are eggs. Some of the eggs were not 'fertilised', and this means there is no baby turtle inside them.
Baby Turtle gets back to work at her shell. She's only been going for a short while longer when 'POP', she's out of the shell! Well, this is a bit of a mess, she thinks, and rolls around in the soft white sand, coating herself in a layer of sticky egg goo and powdery sand! She blends in quite nicely with the sand now, which she thinks will be good for camouflage when she dashes to the shore. She takes another look around her, and decides to dig her way out of the nest. She digs for three days, stopping to rest when she gets tired. When she is almost near the surface, she waits for the temperature around her in the sand to cool down, and then she knows it is night-time. This will be a much safer time for Baby Turtle to emerge because there is less chance that other animals will see her. Using her front flippers she digs and digs, up, up and up, until she reaches the crisp, cool night air on the beach above. She is the first of her nest to make it to the surface.
Baby Turtle looks up and around her, searching for the brightest part of the horizon. This, she knows, is the direction she must go to get to the sea. Luckily the humans that live here have not put lights on the beach, because this would make it too bright and confuse her in which direction to go. Its so quiet on the beach, just a little ghost crab, pure white, scuttling around in the sand. Baby Turtle must move quickly now, for there will be many other animals that will try to eat her and her brothers and sisters. When all of her siblings start to come out of the nest they will cause a commotion and attract the attention of the hovering sea birds and hungry crabs.
Quickly, quickly Baby Turtle uses her flippers to flap down to the shore, downhill all the way because the beach is sloped to the sea. Luckily she has timed her exit well because the tide is flooding, and the water is close to the nest. Already she can see other siblings struggling to push out of the nest now, their little snouts poking through the sand. She rushes to the foam and is knocked over by a wave! But Baby Turtle has made it, and she is swept away into the rush and tumble of the foam, flying past seaweed, shells, sand and bubbles into the dark sparkling water of the ocean, over and over until she is so dizzy she hardly knows which is up or down. Looking back she can see only a few of her little brothers and sisters have made it.
Baby Turtle is so excited and begins to swim frantically, as fast as she can go! Life is so exciting, she is young and free and going somewhere new! She keeps swimming fast away from the shore, further and further from her beach. Baby Turtle will still know this beach in 30 years time when she is ready to come back and lay her own eggs. She will swim back here following the magnetic field of the Earth. Baby Turtle swims on and on for three days and nights, until she finally feels the pull of the current and knows she can rest.
Baby Turtle finds a lovely thick patch of seaweed floating nearby, drifting along with the current, and decides it will be good protection for her. Sure enough, she ducks inside and immediately feels safer, just like a thick cosy blanket! Baby Turtle happily settles into her seaweed blanket and goes to sleep floating on the surface of the water. The gentle movement of the waves rocks her to sleep and she rests peacefully nestled in amongst her little seaweed bed.
When Baby Turtle wakes up she is hungry and decides she must eat something. Baby Turtle is mostly a 'herbivore', which means she likes to eat seaweed and algae, but sometimes she will eat meat too, so really she is an 'omnivore'. Inside her new floating seaweed home Baby Turtle finds many tasty things to eat. She starts off with a little nibble of the seaweed coated in algae. After this she discovers a little fish darting in and out of her bed! This little fish becomes her breakfast, followed by a jellyfish that she also finds hiding under her seaweed pillow. Baby Turtle is very satisfied and full now, mmmmmmmm that jellyfish was tasty!
Most of Baby Turtle's days are spent basking in the sun, on her drifting seaweed bed, and looking for nice things to eat. She spends the next 4 years floating along wherever the current will take her, and she sees many beautiful oceans and exciting things. After all this time in the 'pelagic' surface waters, Baby Turtle decides that it is time to stop travelling and find a permanent home to move to, closer to the land. She wants to move into the shallower coastal waters where there are fields of seagrass and plentiful clams and shellfish for her to eat amongst the rocks.
While she has been roaming about the oceans all these years Baby Turtle has come across many dangers. One day she only just escaped being eaten by a shark! The shark was looming in the dark depths below her, and she had to swim as fast as her little flippers would take her so that she wouldn't be eaten. Baby Turtle also was caught in a big net one day, a net set out by humans to catch fish, where she was tangled and it took all her strength to untangle herself to escape the net. She was so exhausted that day that she almost had no energy left to get back to her safe floating seaweed home!
So after many years out in the open ocean, Baby Turtle follows the magnetic field of the Earth towards the shallow waters of the coast. Here she finds the huge seagrass fields and a more permanent home for herself. Baby Turtle lives here for many years, and when she is 30 years old she returns to the beach where she was born, again following the magnetic field of the Earth, and lays the next generation of Sea Turtle.
Science concepts
Habitat, predation, reproduction and life cycle of a sea turtle.
Moral concepts
Parents love their children from before they are born. They want the best for their children, and strive to make the best home for them that they can, and the safest environment possible.
Mother Turtle's care for her unborn babies, but her necessity to leave them and let them go free to learn and be themselves when they are old enough.
Baby Turtle's travels and growth, symbolic of a child leaving home and growing up. Baby Turtle finally settles down in her permanent home, symbolic of the child making decisions for themselves and becoming independent.
Activity
1. Young children: Colouring the life cycle of a sea turtle worksheet (see below), and labelling the different parts.
2. Older children: Creating a cartoon of the life cycle of a sea turtle and labelling the different parts.
3. Group discussion of moral concepts from story.
| sea_turtles_worksheet.pdf |
| File Size: | 228 kb |
| File Type: | pdf |
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| sea_turtles_worksheet.doc |
| File Size: | 95 kb |
| File Type: | doc |
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