Every so often while beachcombing in the intertidal zone in firm sand, I see deep tubular holes of about 1-2 inches diameter clustered near each other, with odd slash-type tracks radiating out from them. I've seen similar holes (minus any tracks of course) while snorkeling in about 6-12 feet depths. I'd assumed the underwater holes were home to garden eels or young lobster. But on shore? Hmmm.
Peeking into the holes yielded no insight. But the residents revealed
themselves soon enough. Crabs. Lots of crabs. One per hidey-hole. Fiddlers, in some areas; in other areas, I've no clue - those guys move fast when motivated and I don't know much about crab species anyway. But anyway: observe the tracks of the pointy legs of crabs. The ones in the pic up on the left go to and from the carapace of a lobster, which must have been yummy and/or entertaining to investigate.
Up away from the intertidal crab bunkers, in softer sand I find the tracks of various lizards, made during their early morning forays.
One morning on a beach in Puerto Refugio shortly after sunrise, I found a set of pelican tracks leading inland across a narrow neck of land to the opposite side of the island. I was all curious to discover where a pelican would walk instead of fly, so I followed the trail. The pelican (and I) walked up over a high sand dune, and along a trail that led into low scrub due west. The tracks never wavered. Small flocks of pelicans flew overhead, always headed north, not west. Why had this pelican walked so far in a direction different from his airborne colleagues? Broken wing? Too weak from disease or starvation to fly? Religious conviction? Soon "my" pelican's tracks joined one or two others. I began passing pelican feathers...the odd pelican bone...partial pelican skeletons...I'd walked about 1/4 mile inland (so had the pelicans) and the atmosphere was getting a little creepy. I chickened. Not wanting to blunder into some sacred pelican place, I turned tail and waddled back down to the safe, open, bone-free seashore. Some mysteries are best left unsolved.
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