First Night Walk 6/4/19 - A SUCCESS!

Blog Post By: Cadey, Sea Turtle Intern

​​            Last night we had our first night walk program of the season, it was also my first ever! It was so awesome to see everyone’s turtle excitement. Although we had a good storm late in the day we had many people brave the weather to attend the program. Thankfully, by the end of the presentation the storm cleared our beach and was offshore enough to keep us dry while also giving us a beautiful show while we were in search of turtle activity.
            We walked hopefully for a bit before we saw any activity. But once we came across the first false crawl there was a good boom of activity. We saw the aftermath from where one turtle bulldozed right through another blocked off nest knocking the posts right over. We then saw where again another turtle had bulldozed over one nest on her way in and then took out another one on her way back out, even snapping one of the wooden posts. She surely was not letting anything get in her way! After a series of false crawls and a nest with no momma in sight we were getting close to the end of the beach. Still hopeful with all the activity we saw we carried on, and right before we got to the inlet there she was! A beautiful loggerhead beginning to dig her egg chamber. We waited for her to begin laying before we got a closer look and it was surely worth the walk all the way to the inlet! Our turtle momma was glowing, literally! She had a good coat of bioluminescence on part of her shell. (Bioluminescence is the emission of light by living organisms, so in the dark of the night we could see the glowing blueish organisms on her and in the sand.) After she finished nesting she began her (indirect) route back to the ocean making some funny little changes in direction until the waves covered her from our sight. We then started our trek back where we ran into another smaller turtle on her way back to the ocean and a few more new sets of tracks.
            This morning after our sea turtle patrol returned from duty we discovered the turtle we got to see nest last night had laid our 100th nest of the season!!! It was surely a beautiful night we couldn’t forget! I am super excited for the rest of our night walks this season. I hope to see you all out there!

If you would like to adopt nest 100, click the button below to be taken to the adoption page. The unique ID number for nest 100 is: 244797

Adopt a Nest!

Our intern, Chloe, wth nest 100 during morning turtle patrol