October 4, 2013
During my morning walk at Robinson Preserve today, I had an
amazing encounter. There are several wooden bridges over inlets where the water
rushes in and out of Tampa bay. I often stop and look into the water to see
what kind of fish are hanging around.
Today, the tide was coming in and the water was quite high.
I stopped to see what critters might be lurking in the watery shadows and I was
astonished to see dozens of horseshoe crabs of varying sizes. There were
several really large ones and they had smaller crabs holding onto them. It
didn’t take long for me to realize that they were mating.
The crabs moved around rather quickly, occasionally piling
up on top of each other and then separating. It was quite the party and I was
very excited to take part in this new wildlife encounter. I think it was the
first time I’ve seen them scurrying around, and to witness such an interesting
activity was superb. I continued to see them for several hundred yards along
the trail in the water.
Now I know that some of you are thinking, ‘what did they
say,’ right? Well, I didn’t talk to them. I thought about it, but I realized
that they didn’t need some big old human interrupting their love making just
for idle chit-chat. It was pretty obvious what was going on, and that it was
not the time to talk.
I took a few pictures (so I can talk to them later) and
continued on my way, but decided to turn around instead of doing the loop. As I
approached the crab area again, I wondered why I hadn’t seen any animals
feeding on them. Suddenly I spotted a small female raccoon, chomping away on a
crab and I could see several shells behind her. Further along I also found an
ibis pecking away at another crab. It seems that I needed to come back to see
how the whole cycle of life was playing out today in the mangroves.
