This morning I found a turtle track and nest! Totally cool and totally obvious! You can see where the Momma turtle crawled up the beach. they can’t really walk,they kind of flipperswim across the sand. You can see finmarks and a tailmark and the marks from her shell.
This is the nest, she digs a hole that is like the inside of a vase, and lays her eggs. Then she moves forward and buries the nest by throwing sand behind her, digging a big hole in the process. You see the hole, and the nest is under the mound right next to it. It doesn’t photograph well.
Then I called the dept of environmment (Not Bio Girl, she apparently doesn’t work Firdays) and they came out and dug and located the eggs (without disturbing them), triangulated the location and documented everything. They’ll come back in about 2 months when the eggs are supposed to hatch (hopefully with me) and assist if necessary.
This is a picture that I took standing right next to the nest, looking north. It looks a little like a tropical beach on a Caribbean island, doesn’t it? I love my life! It is soooo great!!
Found One!
Click pics to enlarge
I love love love this post! These pictures are incredible — felt like I was on a mini vacation just looking at them!!!!! The turtle tracks and nest are way cool! I couldn’t imagine (from earlier posts) what exactly you were looking for (since I’ve never seen such myself) and now I know and like you said, it seems soooo obvious! Thanks for sharing this stuff Mark! See! I told you – I get to see stuff I may never be able to!
Awesome stuff Mark! That is so cool that you ofund a turtle nest. Will you be checking on them over the next two months?
Great pictures Mark! It looks amazing and you sound very excited about your find.
Wow… what a beautiful place to be! Such a gorgeous beach and how incredible to find a turtles nest!! What a cool way to start a day…
Great picture of the palm trees and the beach. I saved it as my desktop background.
I grew up next to a lake and we used to see the snapping turtles lay their eggs in the springtime every year. Poor baby turtles never get to know their mom. They’ve got to fend for themselves as soon as they hatch.
Very cool, I’ve never seen a turtle nest before. And, when I first saw the pic with the turtle tracks, I thought, oh, they must have just run a tractor over the sand to rake it. Yea, you can tell I’m used to U.S. beaches! I have your pics up as my wallpaper at work!
I think I could handle living in the Cayman Islands….yeah…I definelty think I could :-)Beautiful pics, and I”m with carnelian, I thought it was a tractor and something that made the marks. Too cool that it was a turtle.Keep the pics and blogs coming.