Turtle Patrol of 18 May; 6:10 am!

OK, so I admit 6:10 am is a lovely time to be on the beach (although mini me is still in bed at that hour!) . . .

. . . and there are plenty of fisherman at sea and a few beachcombers about.

Sunrise about 1 1/2 hour later here than in UK at the minute. Turtle patrols start 1/2 hour before sunrise.

Me out in the boat to Shell Key (uninhabited island bird sanctuary) and hubby in the jeep at Pass-a-Grille (barrier island) with Turtle Joe - all of us scouting the beach for any signs of loggerhead turtle nests.

Pink roseates swishing water for food

Nothing but human footprints on Shell Key, however, just being out on the water with Bruno was a real treat. The bird life, as you would expect, was superb with about six roseates sighted (sorry sis).

Blue Heron & friends

My point 'n shoot camera doesn't really do it justice, but here's a peek - bonus pelican flying overhead. This juvenile great blue heron caught a fish whilst we briefly jumped off the boat to check a previously found nest - the heron swallows the fish 'head first' to be sure it goes down.

False crawl

Back on sandy land in the jeep, what does hubby spy but ... first a solitary manatee -- spotted just off the coast -- then a 'false crawl' (when the mamma turtle is spooked and returns to the sea without laying any eggs); this needs to be raked out to avoid any confusion.  And then - yes tracks leading to a nest! Speculation is turtle tracks may be to turtles as unique as fingerprints are to us.

The turtle 'fingerprint' a funny extra squiggle

one track to nest (left) & one back to the sea (right)
Turtle Joe estimates a 250 lb mum made these tracks

One has to locate the actual egg cavity or 'clutch'.  This isn't always as simple as it seems and we try not to dig up the eggs. The nest can only be touched by a 'permit holder.'  Here the sand is quite hard and the eggs are just below the surface (near to surface = warmer =  lots of females will hatch from this nest).

Turtle Joe searching for the clutch

Turtle eggs look a bit like ping pong balls

Next the nest has to be triangulated with measurements from the mean high water mark and from the vegetation line; GPS coordinates are also taken.

Then it is time to stake and mark off the nest.  Job done for today.

A long crawl from the sea with a heavy shell on her back

The nest site before staking