Excavation of a green sea turtle nest

Last week Connie and I were staying at the Manasota Beach Club on Manasota Key, and during one of our walks on the beach we wound up talking to one of the volunteers doing turtle patrol up and down the beach. This is the time of year that the sea turtle eggs hatch in that area, so he was looking for signs of them hatching. He told us that one nest had hatched three days ago and was due for them to excavate the nest to document the number of eggs laid and to also help out any late hatchlings that might still be in the nest. He invited us along to watch that excavation, so we decided to take him up on his offer...

At the end of the video you'll see what evidence he was looking for to determine that a nest had had eggs hatching over night. Those tracks in the sand were made from a bunch of baby sea turtles scrambling across the sand from the nest, heading for the water. This later nest hatched right in front of the place we were staying several days later than when we witnessed the nest excavation further up the beach.



BTW, the egg laying time is apparently during most of July, so that would probably be pretty interesting to witness first hand as well. Too bad we couldn't see a nest actually in the process of hatching. But that would certainly be a case of having to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

How neat!