Night Walk 7/2 - A Turtle Sighting!

The turtles had us getting our steps in during our program! We walked all the way to the inlet without a sighting. Near the inlet a turtle starting emerging near the tail end of our group, but decided not to come ashore. We were hopeful she was going to find another spot!

On our walk back, we had a turtle ashore! We took a look through the night vision monocular to see her as she was still trying to find a spot to nest. From a distance I could faintly see a throw of sand and hear her shuffling about. Unfortunately, she did not settle on a location and turned around and headed back to the ocean. We got to see her closer as she made her crawl into the waves. 

When we got back to the office building, I continued the walk to the southern section of our beach in the hopes we may have had a turtle ashore. There was a fresh nest with no turtle in sight! She must have come up on our walk to the inlet and already finished laying her eggs and returned. 

The following morning we documented two new nests and two false crawls. With such few activities last night, I am so happy we at least got to see a sea turtle!

The nest near the Pavilion was relocated as it was below the Spring high tide line. It is marked as nest 256. It had a total of 121 eggs and is now in a more suitable location. The other nest found had a very long crawl so she would have nested early this morning. That nest is marked as 257. See below for pictures taken from the morning patrol.