Lots of turtle activity Thursday night, early Friday morning on the Cherry Grove Beach. A turtle was seen entering the water around 2AM, This turtle had crawled all the way up the beach to the dunes, looked like she started a body pit, stopped, crawled 1/2 way up the dunes, crawled back down and to the S of her incoming crawl, crawled in a circle at the base of the dunes, crawled back up the dunes and then down. Several blocks South, another crawl, clearly a false crawl, turtle actually made an awareness symbol turning in a semi circle and crossing over her incoming track on the way back into the water. A few blocks South of this crawl, another crawl is located, this one longer and ending in a good size body pit.
While only one call came in regarding a turtle sighting, this poor turtle may have been seen by others and may have been harassed by several......
And the fox showed up again, body pit was full of fox tracks, 2 holes were dug, one right in the egg cavity. No broken eggs were found on the beach or in the cavity, the eggs were very deep in the sand so the fox may have been scared off by Sanitation before getting to the eggs. Since the nest was below the Spring HTL and in the middle of the beach, it was relocated back to the dunes. A cage will be put up covering the egg cavity.
First False Crawl
Up the dunes
down and around and back up again
2nd False Crawl, Quick up and turn around
crossover and into the water
3rd Crawl
Body Pit mid-way up beach
Fox had already started to dig up egg cavity so
eggs easily found
Fox Tracks
Fox tracks even in crawl
Yes, we have eggs, deep so apparently not
disturbed by fox
Relocating the eggs back to the dunes
Deep in the sand
Annette and family
NMB Nest #7
118 eggs, 1 broken in nest used for DNA
117 eggs relocated
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