NMB Nest #6

A crawl was found by Segment B walkers around 12th Ave N on Tuesday, July 15th.  It was extremely windy on the beach and a good portion of the crawl was blown over and filled in with sand.  It was clear that this turtle had stopped 3 times on her  way up to the dunes, 3 times started to nest but hen abandoned the spot and continued up.  Her tracks were very faint near the dune line, a body pit was never really visible, nor were her incoming or outgoing tracks.   An area was probed  and probed by the egg cavity could not be found.  After a couple of hours, the search was halted and the track was recorded as a false crawl.   A month later, by looking at pictures taken that July morning, a small area was roped off, just a precaution in case there were eggs.  But again, no defined egg cavity was found.

Sunday morning, September 14th, 61 days later,  STP Volunteer, John was walking past the roped off area and noticed a large hole, typical of many of our holes left after hatchlings have emerged.   A quick feel inside the hole, very soft sand and to our surprise and delight, a hatchling!!  The hole was quickly covered with loosely packed sand and plans were made for the inventory the following Wed.

Hatchling is released on the beach and watched closely as it crawls to the water.  

Big hatchling, very strong, eager to be on it's way

Wednedsay, Sept. 17, crowd starts to gather as word spread about the pending inventory.  

 

Rob, John and several kids, including Abbey and Spencer from the NMB Sea Turtle Patrol and Piper and friend from the local elementary school dig up the egg cavity and start pulling out eggs.

Very deep hole dug by the mother

 Two hatchlings died in the egg, before even starting to hatch.  Here can be seen how the hatchling develops around the yolk sac

   

The second hatchling had an even bigger yolk sac, probably died at an earlier stage

Finally, all eggs are remove.

Spencer and friend show spectators what an unhatched egg looks like

Finally, all eggs are removed

Sorted into piles, hatched vs unhatched

 This little one wore the right shirt.........

Counting the eggs

Hatched vs unhatched

Inventory Results of NMB Nest #6

Nest was laid on July 15....Hatchlings emerged on Sept. 14

61 days of incubation

Nest was laid at 12th Ave N

109 eggs found in the egg chamber of which

103 hatched 

6 unhatched of which

4 died in early development, 2 died late development, hatchling formed

No live or dead hatchlings were found 

94.4% hatching Success Rate

Thank you Julie for your great pictures

Thank you Tuesday, Segment B Walkers, you found the crawl but the egg cavity was never found....

it was there, just well hidden by the mother and mother nature.