Nest Analysis

I'm happy to present some pictures from my sea turtle nest analysis assignment.

Here are the two Sea Turtle Project area coordinators excavating the nest. Sea turtle nests are shaped like an upside-down lightbulb, large at the bottom and narrow near the surface. The left pile between them is hatched eggs; the right pile is unhatched ones.

Here is the baby turtle they found alive. They had to put him in a bucket and release him only after dark because baby turtles are too vulnerable and visible to predators when it is light.

Here they are using a flashlight to candle the unhatched eggs and tell if they are fertilized. If they had found any, they would have reburied them in anundisturbed nest.

Seagrove! Peace! Turtles!

I went to Seagrove this weekend for the second annual Potters for Peace event. It was great fun, especially since I didn't have any work or research to do at all. I bought a ton of great stuff that I will treasure for a long time.

Last night, I got to see my friend Stuart oh so briefly on Topsail Island. We got dinner and then went to a turtle nest analysis. 72 hours after the nest had hatched, they were counting the remaining eggs, seeing which might be fertilized (none), and helping the one baby who hadn't made it to the surface--the eggs are buried pretty deep. They put the baby in a bucket to release him after dark. In the daylight, he was too vulnerable to predators. It was sweet, and I got to take pictures so it counts as work, too. Times like that, I love my job.