Basking Data

June 2021 Basking Narrative

June 2021 saw 76 basking occurrences, 37 fewer than May and 12 fewer than June of 2020’s total of 88 (one of the few months from 2020 for which we have actual and complete statistics).  June of 2019, the most recent year for which we can make calendar year comparisons, saw 57 basking occurrences, 19 fewer than this year.

*Due to COVID beach closings, no direct “year to date” comparison with 2020 can be made though, as above, we can compare June numbers in isolation. Hence, this month we’ll continue comparing this year’s totals with those of 2019. At this point in the year, we are 2 basking occurrences ahead of 2019, 407 to 405.  Please keep in mind that 2019 was our biggest recent basking year since Brutus was still around.

June saw only 1 day without any turtle on the beach.  During May, at least 1 honu hauled out every day!  This was the first time there was a honu on the beach every day of the month since September 2013, a stretch of 92 months (i.e. over 7 years).   Brutus was still basking at Laniakea!  The longest streak of consecutive days for at least 1 turtle to be out on the beach is 96 days, from May 10 through August 14, 2011.  Through the end of May, we were at 38 days (including 7 days at the end of April) and counting.  Unfortunately, that string was broken on June 20^th, when we experienced OUR ONLY DAY IN JUNE without a turtle basking on the beach.  That brought our string of continuous days WITH a turtle out to 57 days, nowhere near the longest stretch of continuous basking, but not the shortest that included a whole month of turtle appearances either.

For last year we do have totals for June and there were 3 days without a honu on the beach.  In 2019 there were 5 such days.

During June there were 17 different named turtles that hauled out to bask along with 2 that were not identifiable as members of our `Ohana; in the prior month there were 16 different turtles along with 1 unidentifiable honu. 

In May, Hao returned from a 31-month hiatus and basked 23 times during the month.  In June, she continued her prolific return tour with another 18 appearances.  This is the most she’s ever basked in consecutive months.

Our “top 3” baskers for June were actually 5 because of a 4-way tie for second place.  The top basker was recently returned Hao with 18 appearances.  The other top baskers were Kulihi, Oakley, Olivia-Dawn and Hiwahiwa with 6 appearances each. 

June had multiple turtles out on 22 different days, with the greatest exodus from the water happening on the 18^th when 7 different turtles hauled out.

The 17 different honu that appeared on the beach in June were Hiwahiwa, Sapphire, Olivia-Dawn, Oakley, Wooley-Bully, Punahele, Keoki, Kekoa, Kulihi, Hao, JP, Hilahila, Kaimana, Kaipua, Makana, Maka Nui and Kanoa.

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Historical Year End 2019 Basking Narrative

(see the “Historical” section of the Basking Charts for graphic representation of some of this info)

Basking frequency at Laniakea took a distinct downturn in 2014 and 2015 with the disappearances of first Brutus (who had basked around 200 times per year) and then Kuhina (who hauled out 100 times or so annually). While we may never get back to the levels of 2013 and prior, the year 2019 represents a major upturn in Honu basking as we recorded an increase in basking occurrences for the second year in a row (and actually this was the first time in our reliable recorded history back to 2009 that this has happened!).

In 2019, 741 occurrences of basking took place by turtles that hauled out onto our shore.  That represents a 12.6% increase from 2018 and 46.1% more than appeared in 2017.  Even so, 2019 was an “odd” year.  We currently “track” 20 turtles, 14 that bask only on the “beach” (north side of Laniakea) and 6 that bask only on the “shelf” (south side of Laniakea).  Overall, only 7 turtles basked more in 2019 than in 2018 but the ones that did, basked so much more than last year that we ended up 83 basking occurrences on the plus side even with 3 turtles not showing up at all!

On the “beach” side, Punahele basked 64 more times in 2019 than in 2018.  Maka Nui, in this honu’s first full year of basking, hauled out 40 more times, Olivia-Dawn appeared 7 more and Sapphire one.  Missy was our worst performer, showing up 32 fewer times than the year before.  Overall, the beach side had 4 turtles that increased their basking, and 10 that decreased (including 2 that never showed up at all….. Isabella and Hao).

On the “shelf,” Kaimana increased basking by 49 appearances, Makana by 36 and Kaipua by 12. On the downside, Keoki and Hilahila were short of last year and Tripod was totally absent.

Our statistics also tell us about comings and goings and the duration of time on the beach.  Looking at the `Ohana overall, of the turtles that haul out, slightly more than half do so between 12:00 noon and 3:00 pm.  When broken down between beach and shelf groups, the numbers change.  The beach group comes out slightly later and the shelf group earlier.  At the beach, 52.8% of the basking starts between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm whereas on the shelf it starts 64.2% of the time during the 3 hour period beginning at 11:00 am (and almost gets to half between 11:00 am and 1:00 pm with 47.4%).

Another interesting aspect of turtle basking is to see more than one turtle out on the beach at the same time.  Every month in 2019, we had at least one day with 5 or more turtles up and one day in each of April, May and July with 8 turtles resting peacefully on the beach.

Individually, 4 turtles stayed overnight at least once 9 different times during the year (Wooley-Bully 4, Kulihi 2, Punahele 2, & Sapphire 1), with Punahele recording the earliest sunrise time at 5:49 am.  Other than sunrise, Hiwahiwa clocked the earliest time out of the water at 7:30 am.  The latest to emerge from the water was Oakley at 6:15 pm.  Median times out for all the turtles (i.e. the mid-point in recorded times with half of the emergences occurring before that time and half occurring after) ranged from 11:23 am to 3:12 pm.

In regard to the duration of time individuals spend on the beach, they ranged from 0:02 minutes for Hiwahiwa to 13 hours and 22 minutes for Punahele on the day she “clocked in” at 5:49 am at sunrise and stayed on the beach through sunset.  The range of “average duration of time out of the water” for our “beach” turtles is 1:58 for Maka Nui (in 61 appearances) to 4:21 for Oakley (in 36 appearances).  On the “shelf” they ranged from 1:15 for Kaimana (with more than half of 83 appearances under 45 minutes) to 3:45 for “old timer” Keoki on 22 visits.

While we cannot reasonably monitor a turtle’s time on the beach after dark, we do measure how often a basking turtle stays past sunset.

During 2019 there were 735 separate appearances by members of our `ohana and 6 unidentified turtles.  Discounting the unidentifieds, there were 370 times that a turtle that had hauled out (no matter what time of the day) was still on the beach at sunset.  That was more than HALF the time (50.3%).