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Babies in the moonlight!

posted: August 19, 2016, 11:50 AM

There were lots of baby turtles swimming in the full moon last night and the night before. The news from the beach is that it's been over two weeks since a mother turtle has laid a nest on our beach. This is a sign that the nesting season is over. But you may notice that we've added two new nests...we're up to 52 due to what we call "wild nests". These are nests the Turtle Patrol didn't know were there. Last week babies appeared from what is nest 51--we had thought it was a "false crawl". Then Wednesday night a young visitor came running up to HBTP members telling us that there were babies on the beach. We observed over 90 babies heading to the ocean in the moonlight. Amazing sight. We didn't know this nest was there.

We're more than half-way through the hatching season, too. Nests are hatching early (due to the hot weather we've been having.) Some nests are hatching on day 49 and 50 instead of the more typical 55-65 days after the nest was laid. There was a boil (91 babies) from Nest 29 (day 53) last night. Nest 34 has a depression (day 47) and should be hatching soon. Many babies are heading out on their own late at night--when the sand cools off---it's hard to keep an accurate count.

We have two more Turtle Talk programs August 24 and 31.

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