Nest 8!!!

FINALLY A NEST!!!

Anne and Jim came across a turtle crawl early this morning.

Beautiful crawl, this is a very neat turtle.  She had one thing on her mind, take care of business and get back into the water!  The last few feet of her outgoing track merged with her incoming to form a single crawl.

What a neat design!

Even the Pelicans wanted to check out the morning activity. 

A ghost crab had already been attracted to the nest.

Linda probed and quickly found the egg cavity.  Rob showed Nancy how to dig for eggs.  A loose egg was found close to the surface.  Ghost Crab attack!

The crab had tried to crack into the egg.

Further down, all the other eggs were found, packed into the sand.

119 eggs!!  The one egg compromised by the Ghost Crab was taken for the DNA Study.  118 eggs were relocated further back on the beach, closer to the dunes.

John, NMB Sanitation, first saw the crawl and stopped Anne and Jim to let them know.

Two NMB Visitors.  Sarah was hoping to see turtle activity on her vacation. When she arrived on Saturday,  She was surprised to see a nest in front of the condo she was staying in.  More surprises for her:  a crawl,  a nest and she even got to hold the DNA egg.

And of course, the beach was littered with holes!  Two big ones right next to where the turtle came on shore.  

A big thanks to John for telling Anne and Jim about the crawl.  Thank you Anne and Jim for getting out so early and calling the nest in.

Thank you Nancy for helping relocate the eggs.  It was a hot job!

Thanks to all the Monday volunteers who came to the site and helped out.

After 4 false crawls.....A NEST!!!