Turtle Excavation

I had quite the adventure the other evening. Cape Hatteras NS had over 130 sea turtle nests this summer and some of them are starting to hatch. Very exciting. After a nest hatches, a member of our resource staff goes to the nest to count egg shells and see if there are any stragglers. My dear friend Katie Bell invited me and four other interp rangers to come with her on an excavation.

We had a beautiful night, except for the mosquitoes, and even had a rainbow for the first part.
Yep, this is where I work.

Here's a not so flattering picture of Katie starting to dig down to the nest. When a nest is found, a protective barrier is placed around it to keep vehicles and people from disturbing it. As the time gets closer to the projected hatch, black fencing is placed around the nest to the water to help block out the light from the villages on the islands.

This was our first little guy. Can you imagine starting your life by breaking out of your shell, crawling up with your brothers and sisters through a foot and a half to two feet of sand, then heading the fifty-ish feet to the water?

Here's Katie holding our first little guy. Soo cute!

There were some casualties of the evening. There were a few dead hatched turtles, a few that were predated, and some eggs that were not fertilized. Except for the softer shell, when cracked open, they looked very similar to a chicken egg. Somewhat strange to watch.

In all, we found nine live sea turtles. We released four of them into the surf and the rest went in the cooler down the beach to take part in a light study and were released later that night.

So cute.

Next week, I will have been out here four months. Crazy how fast it's gone and yet seems like I've been here forever. I think everyone needs a little Outer Banks in their life!