What a night! We got a call about a nesting mama on the river beach at Ft. Caswell at 10:16 last night. When we got there, the kids told us she had gone back to the water (we gave a quick lesson on flashlight etiquette). They said there was another turtle down the beach, so on we went. She was really big! The state asks us to collect data from nesting turtles if seen, so we measured her as she was covering up her eggs.
Her crawl width was 119cm/46.8″.
Her carapace width was 90cm/35.4″.
Her length Notch to Tip was 98cm/38.5″.
Her length Notch to Notch was 99cm/38.9″.
We marked the area and left the egg finding for Morning Patrol. This is Nest #32.
As we were walking back, another mama came out of the water! We think this is the mama the kids told us about first, returning to try again. She came back when it was quiet! Another really big one! We watched from a distance while she did her job and were amazed at the process of digging the nest chamber with the back flippers! She pushed up on her “tippy toes” with one flipper while the other flipper dug out about 1/4 cup of sand. It took about an hour.
Her crawl width was 106cm/41.7″.
Her carapace width was 88cm/34.6″
Her length Notch to Tip was 99cm/38.9″
Her length Notch to Notch was 100cm/39.3″
Again, we left the nest for Morning Patrol. This is Nest #31.
Both nests and the False Crawl from the first attempt were in precarious locations with sloughing escarpments from erosion. That river beach is a mess!
Morning Patrol relocated them to safer locations.
Another nest was found this morning, Nest #33, thankfully in a safe location!
Crawl Width: 90.7cm/38″
A few pictures were taken with a ‘Night Sight’ setting on my phone last night. It was very dark out, but you can see where the GPS Tower is a problemsome light source out there!
**This conservation work for protected sea turtles on Caswell Beach is authorized by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission (ES Permit 23ST03).