Nest #4 was discovered by Larry and Cindy on Sunday, July 8th. A false crawl, just a short distance from the nest had been found 2 days before. Was the turtle just testing the area or had she been scared away the first night?
Nest was found high in the dunes. The turtle had dug one hole, abandoned it, dug a second hole further up the same dune and finally laid her eggs.
Day 52, while checking the nest in the early evening, three ospreys were seen circling the empty, stormy beach.
Day 53, Cindy and Larry check early in the morning...Surprise, not only a hole is found but two hatchlings are still coming out of the sand. One is turned over, struggling on it's back.
No tracks are seen coming from the nest, sand is wet and hard packed. But, closer to the high tide line, tracks are discovered.
Larry and Cindy made sure the two hatchlings made it out of the nest and into the water. No birds allowed!!!
Four days later, time to dig up the egg chamber and find whats been under the sand for almost 2 months.
Larry and his son, Adam volunteer to dig.
An egg shell is quickly found, then a hatchling....is he the only one or are there more?
More careful digging, eggs are found further down into a deep hole. Eggs are sorted and counted.
Data is recorded.
This was a natural nest, grasses and weeds had quickly grown up around the egg chamber. Several of the undeveloped eggs were fuzzy from roots grounding around them.
Whole eggs are opened to determine stage of development.
A second hatchling was found deep in the nest.
The two hatchlings are released on the beach, to begin their crawl to the ocean.
NEST #4
Nest was laid on July 8th
Natural nest, one egg was taken for DNA Study, egg chamber was quickly re-covered.
Hatchlings emerged on late August 29/ early August 30th, day 52/53
Inventory was conducted on Sunday, Sept 2
104 Hatched eggs
11 whole or unhatched eggs, all died in early development
3 pipped eggs (Hatchling died after opening egg but before emerging from shell)
2 live hatchlings were found still in the nest and released on the beach
Total nest count--119 eggs
88.14 hatchling success rate
Thank you Larry, Cindy and the rest of the Braircliffe Team
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