It's almost August and the long, hot days of summer have set in ... and the loggerhead mommas are still crawling and nesting and the nests laid back in May and June are bursting out with babies!
No hatchlings on Tuesday, but it was a busy day on the beach with one non-nesting crawl, one nesting crawl (#166!!), and a team inventory of nest #11. Nest #11 was this year's Tuesday team's first nest, so we were very excited at the opportunity to "inventory" the nest.
Inventorying a nest occurs either three days after a documented hatching (which was not our case) - OR at 70 days after the nest is laid (in the event no hatching is documented). Now, just because a hatching isn't noticed doesn't mean it didn't happen!
This was the case with nest #11 - it DID hatch, probably during the rainstorms a couple of weeks ago, but the rain washed away all the evidence (baby turtle tracks). We were a little nervous about the condition of the nest, but were happily surprised at a 80% hatch rate!! According to the count of hatched casings, 87 baby turtles hatched! There was even a "triplet" egg casing (picture below)!
Nest #166 Non-Nesting Crawl
Inventory Nest #11 "Triplet" egg casing (it hartched!)
Inventory Nest #11
