Our First Nest! (continued)

Our day finally came.  It started out like any other day.  Steve was walking North Middle Beach and I had the Mule up North Beach.  On my patrol, I came across nearly 100 stranded horseshoe crabs.  I couldn't just drive by all of them so I made a pit stop and flipped over 52.  Nearly all of them made it back to the water.  I continued my drive north, scanning for nest signs, looking off to my left, when it showed up directly in front of me.  The track of the turtle leaving the nest was fresh in the wet sand from last night's high tide.  I had to stop myself for a second to realize that I was finally seeing what we came here for.  I was so excited and immediately got out, started to walk the path and call Steve at the same time.  I examined the crawl for direction, species, and body cavity to determine if it was a false crawl or a nesting event.  All signs pointed to a nest.  I tried Steve over and over but his phone was out of range.  I then called Mark, our boss, and relayed the info.  He told me to go over the steps he trained us, and "Good Luck."  I hopped on the Mule and went as fast as I could to pick up Steve.  I arrived at the tidal creek to find him stranded, and a small fishing boat retrieving his kayak, since he didn't pull it high enough up the beach.  Before Steve and I could go to the nest site, we had to find our shovel and metal stakes that fell out of the Mule on the ride to the beach (Steve drives like a maniac).  Luckily, they were only a few minutes drive inland.  We sped back up the beach and immediately got to work.

Our training has us look over a few key things.  First we determine species.  Since we had never seen a crawl before, this one was tricky.  Measurements and body drag pointed to green, however, flipper pattern looked like a loggerhead.  Pictures were sent off to our boss for help, and an egg shell for genetic research will ultimately tell.

Next we determined nest status.  The first sign is called track differential.  This is where the track is longer on one path than the other because of a rising or falling tide and signals that she had spent a period of time on land.  The picture to the right shows an evident track differential.  She came up the beach on the lower track.  Notice that the track is washed away with the high tide/wrack line.  After spending over an hour on land, she heads for water, which has receded with the tide, and therefore leaving a longer track in wet sand, the top track.  


After track differential, we looked for track continuity, or an area of disturbed sand without distinguishable tracks. The disturbed sand was looked over for signs of a body pit, thrown sand, and ripped up vegetation.  Otherwise a track with an in-out track with no disturbance is a false crawl.  Our nest had an obvious disturbed area with all the signs.  Then we outlined the body cavity with sea wrack to preserve the shape of the area.  Once we started digging, most of the area was disturbed and clues lost.  We probed the area using a blunt dowel careful not to puncture the eggs.   We used a systematic method to find the nest.  I thought I found the nest right away.  The layer of dry sand pushed into more packed sand, which then led to softer sand below.  I got on my hands and knees and carefully started to dig with my hand.  Nothing but soft sand.  The entire area we dug did the same thing, and caused much frustration.  The next step was to remove 6 inches of sand and probe again.  We continued this method for 2.5 hours.  Still nothing.  We called our boss and got the okay to give up.  We hated leaving the nest without verification, but exhaustion was taking over.  Steve and I packed up our stuff and headed home.  

On the way, we stopped at our crab trap.  I pulled up the trap and found four large blue crabs.  We were both happy that our newest endeavor for food had worked out.  They soon became lunch.  After, Steve took a nap and I looked over the nest pictures and did some research.  I also completed my Oil Spill Response module.  After Steve woke up, I convinced him that we missed the area and had to go back.   It was 5 PM by then, so we knew we wouldn't have too  much time.  We packed up the Mule and headed out.  I drove and made it to the beach in what might be record time.  I was even soft on the bumps too.  We arrived by 545 and I was very confident we'd find it this time.

Steve proceeded by marking off the area we thought we missed, and started probing.  Still nothing.  He then started removing small layers of sand and looked for a round area that didn't follow the surrounding pattern of sand.  Again, nothing.   I got in and started probing.  Then started digging as well.  I was almost ready to give up when Steve said to check the area between the two areas we had dug.  I thought we already dug there that morning, but he insisted.  After hours of searching, I found it.  Smack in between the two dug areas was the top of the nest.  Finally!  We took an egg for research and closed it up.  Then we filled in the hole we just dug.  Steve and I covered the nest in two plastic screens to protect it from ghost crabs and raccoons.  Then a stake went into the ground to mark it - North Beach 1.  Glad that we successfully found our first nest, we packed up and headed home.  After some pit stops of feeding animals, we arrived home exhausted.  It is finally official, though, our sea turtle nesting season has begun!