Night Walk 6/22 - A SUCCESS!

We had a tougher walk on Thursday with higher tides and soft sand, however, it was all worth it when about 3/4 of a mile down the beach, we had a turtle ashore! I confirmed that the turtle was just finishing up laying her eggs. By the time the group arrived, the turtle was covering with her hind flippers, shortly after she started to cover with her front flippers. We watched as she covered and made the turn to head back into the surf. As it was high tide, she did not have far to crawl. Her nest was situated below the Spring high tide line, so the following morning, the dawn patrol team moved it to a more suitable location. The nest we saw on the night walk is nest 137 on the state park beach.

The following morning we also had a nesting sea turtle that was just heading back into the ocean at 6:30am. We got to watch her enter the surf and take a photo as it was daylight. See below for photos taken during the dawn patrol. There were three new nests and three false crawls documented.