Six nests in five days! Seems like a record week in a record year. This morning Dan was doing the ATV run when he came across a beautiful crawl in Southern Shores. He was so excited to see the crawl that he didn’t even notice it was a one-way track. It didn’t take long though because once he followed it up to the dune, he saw a most beautiful loggerhead covering up her nest site. After she finished up, he called the NEST hotline and the Nesting Response Team was activated.
Loggerhead returning to the sea. Notice the well-healed notch above her left rear flipper. It appears that she may have had a tussle in the past with a rather toothy fish. Clearly she's recovered strongly from the incident!
Dennis and MaryAnn dig for eggs.
Dennis began digging and with a little coaching from Jackie, he was right on the eggs. They were fairly shallow, with the first egg about 23 cm (9 inches) deep. Most our nests this season have been between 30-40 cm deep.
MaryAnn collects DNA.
As Marilyn and Rick educated all the interested on-lookers, the rest of the team took to staking off the newest nest on our list.
The photo on the left shows the undisturbed nest site. The photo on the right shows where the eggs were located. The yellow ring highlights the nest chamber.
Nest #25 - Response Team