June has been a very exciting month for wildlife on LSSI! Here are some of the highlights:

• Fallow Deer fawns are being born and can be seen with their mothers throughout the island

• Black Skimmers, Least Terns, Wilson’s Plovers, and American Oystercatchers are all nesting successfully on our beaches; three of the American Oystercatcher chicks were fitted with leg bands to help track them throughout their lifetime and two of the three have been seen flying along the waters edge at the beach!

• Groups of baby armadillos have been seen on Beach Rd.

• Sea Oats are maturing on the beach and are a beautiful pale green in color

• Sea turtle nesting is very successful; our current tally is 64 nests and 91 non-nesting emergences (false crawls); on June 9, an injured green sea turtle was found and taken to the turtle center on Jekyll Island, and on June 14, a green sea turtle crawl was found — no nest was discovered, but the area is marked as a potential nest site that we will continue to monitor

• Fishing in the surf and the creeks has been productive for small to medium sized sharks, and the creeks are very productive with bait fish and shrimp; juvenile (6 – 10 inch) redfish can be seen swimming just under the surface in Mosquito Creek when the conditions are right

• Black Terns and Reddish Egret have been sighted in and around the beach pond

• There was a lightning strike mid-month that ignited a small wildfire in the large tract of marsh east of Myrtle Pond; because these types of wildfires are a natural process (and beneficial!) the head fire was allowed to burn itself out naturally and the backing fire was extinguished for safety. The estimated area burned was about 4 acres.

With all of these exciting things happening on Little St. Simons Island, don’t you think it’s time for your next (or first) visit? We hope to see you soon!

The past two nights have been incredibly active for Loggerhead sea turtles on Little St. Simons Island, relative to the number of emergences typically seen on our beach. On Friday morning, our turtle intern Kristina Hammond spent the morning exploring 10 turtle activities from the previous night; there were two nests and eight false crawls, bringing our totals to 17 nests and 23 false crawls for the season.

Today naturalist Abby Sterling rode the beach, and was astonished to find that last night was even busier for turtles. She discovered a total of seven nests and eight additional false crawls! The totals as of June 5 are now 24 nests and 31 false crawls! This is shaping up to be one of our biggest turtle seasons, if things continue at the present pace. The highest year so far on LSSI was in 2008, with 113 nests.

There have been good numbers of Roseate Spoonbills on Little St. Simons Island as of late. The gorgeous pink wading birds have been seen in nice sized flocks at Skimmer Pond, Myrtle Pond, and North Pond. High numbers have been in the 20s. At Myrtle Pond, the spoonbills have been spotted from the tower, north and south ends of the pond, and at the blind for a lucky few guests.  A variety of age classes have been in all locations.

Recent activity at Myrtle Pond includes some new additions to the LSSI family, as Common Moorhens can be seen out and about with their chicks. Many of the chicks, especially on the south end of the pond, are only about a week old, and still very black and downy. There are also some older, more independent chicks throughout the pond; they can be distinguished by the similar markings to their parents, but more overall grayish color.