No!!! Nest 109 Hatches Without Mini Me!!!



Nest 109 -- See the depression? -- Eagle eyes required!

You may recall mini me's excitement when she found a nest outside her home on 26 June 2014 - nest 109 (see blog post of 29 June).  These nests are monitored and managed by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA).
Now upon her return from visiting family in North Carolina over the weekend, nest 109 had a cage over it.  The cage is a sign of imminent hatching! 

So as night crept in, we maintained a vigil watching the beach.  When we saw the CMA 'nest sitters' arrive at #109, we knew this might be it.  Every 40 minutes we wandered down to see what was happening in the nest -- first sign is a slight depression in the sand, then some sand balls appeared followed by ...

Just before midnight on the 13th August, a single lonesome turtle emerged from Nest 109.  Where's the picture you ask?  Well ----------- turtles are distracted by artificial light and this includes camera flashes.  So no pictures with a point and shoot camera.  The hatchling had enough trouble getting to the sea with the artificial lights on the beach from condos and with the moon behind us (as opposed to in front of us) as we stood looking out to sea.

Example of a sea turtle boil, photo courtesy of NEST

He/She finally made it after several false attempts and a bit of a gentle nudge from the CMA turtle captain. It is unusual but not unheard of for a single turtle to hatch. 

The rest of the nest, we were told, should have hatched on the 14th - so several late nights in a row we made the trek several times a night to see what was happening -- NOTHING! ... and no CMA nest sitters - hummm, not a good sign.

What does a nest 'boil' (sand churning when scores of baby loggerheads climb up through the sand from their nest) look like? It looks something like this -- a fun video (mute the sound) and it does look like something boiling, hence the name.

 



courtesy NPS.gov

Today (17th August) the nest stakes disappeared meaning a nest inventory was taken and all is over.  Mini me cannot believe she missed it and we are not sure when or even if the other circa 99 turtles hatched. 

Update from CMA:  The morning after the one hatchling emerged (ie on the 14th), 55 hatchlings were found in the cage at 5:30 am and were released.

A second nest (laid 11 July according to the marker)  appeared on mini me's return from London -- even closer to our home than nest 109.  We should be moving back into our condo this week, so we can make direct reconnaissance from the balcony.  We will be watching closely to see if we can experience another hatching (it is almost as exciting as a bee swarm for my beekeeper friends).