#51 and 52

It has been somewhat disappointing this year because "the girls" have been a little slow coming ashore to lay their eggs. Yes, I'm talking about turtles and I got the term from one of the Turtle Patrol Volunteers who doesn't seem overly concerned about what appears to be a slow beginning to the nesting season. Apparently our water temperatures have been slow to warm up and the girls like it to be warm. What I can tell you is this morning there were two new nests and I was delighted. That makes #51 and 52 for our beach North of the Inlet. (Please forgive me for the less that ideal quality of these photos.)

I just loved the zig-zag return to the ocean of this first turtle. Wonder what caused her to do that? Maybe just the joy of having her arduous task finally done.

These were both loggerhead nests. You can tell by their tracks in the sand... alternating flipper strokes for loggerheads, simultaneous flipper strokes for green turtles (with sometimes a tail drag) and the leatherbacks are easy to identify because they are simply HUGE — as wide as a small car's wheelbase. I've never seen one because they are so rare and there were only 4 last year in our county's 38 miles of shoreline. Maybe someday I'll be lucky enough to actually see signs of a leatherback if not the turtle itself, I know I'll keep looking which is indeed half the fun.