NMB Nest #3

Don, Kim and Sandy were stopped by the NMB Beach Raker early Monday Morning, looks like a turtle crawl just ahead.

Sure enough, nice long crawl, up from the ocean, turtle stopped halfway up, looks like she tried to make a body pit, but soon abandoned it, crawled further up, turned to the north and crawled a long way down the beach before going back into the water.  Was this turtle spooked by people on the beach?

False Crawl #5

But, a little way south of this crawl, another crawl was found, very faint, hard to see because of the deep soft sand and all of the truck traffic.  This crawl went up the beach, a small , shallow body pit was found, very messy.....body pit?

Incoming crawl was hard to follow, especially up near the body pit.  It did look like the turtle turned around in the body pit, went over her incoming crawl and then out on the side, turned and headed down the beach.

Where if any are the eggs.....no good signs to follow.  Decided to just guess and probe behind some mounded sand at the bottom of the circle.  First few probes, soft sand found but after digging down, found hard sand without any eggs.  Moved slightly to the north, couple of more probes, soft sand again.  More careful digging......

YES EGGS!!!!    First thought was this was another false crawl, but further investigation, egg chamber is found

 Because the eggs are in the middle of a wide beach, in the middle of heavy traffic, both vehicles and people, the eggs are moved back to the dunes.

Digging the new egg cavity

  

DNA Egg

Protecting the eggs

Monday Morning Crew

NMB Nest #3