Nest #21 with its ‘understated’ nest site.
Nest #21 didn’t quite look like a nest at first. The crawl hardly went up the beach, well below the average high tide line, and the nest site with the mound and body pit were pretty unremarkable. But, seeing as there was some thrown sand, the team was advised to dig just to make sure. Sure enough, after digging the entire possible area, they came across a a rather oddly laid nest. The top eggs were spread out, as though they were ‘spilling out’ of the chamber.
Team 21 located the egg chamber. Note the stray eggs above the chamber that also appears to have eggs ‘spilling out’ the top.
Because of it’s location being so far below the high tide line, the team had to relocate the nest toward the foot of the dunes. They came across 110 eggs total.
Nesters carefully remove each egg without rotating them to assure proper development.
As eggs are relocated, the clutch count is tallied. This nest had 110 eggs.
Because of the odd egg chamber and the crawl, we suspect that the turtle might have a hurt flipper. This would cause her to dig a shallow nest (hence the eggs ‘overflowing’) and also perhaps why she didn’t go as far up the beach as we would predict.
To adopt this nest, visit http://seaturtle.org/nestdb/adopt/?b=1 and select ID# 157252 or click here.