As the skies cleared from the haze of the Canadian fires and the weather calmed down, our FIRST NEST ARRIVED IN KITTY HAWK! Ace ATV driver, Billy C, found the nest during his patrol. NEST volunteers patrol the beaches from the VA/NC line to Bode Island looking for turtle nests each day from May 15th to August 31.
ATV rider Billy C in front of his chariot with the loggerhead crawl in the background
Responders Lynn P, Karen J, Murph, and Lori M led the crowd of volunteers through their paces and easily found the eggs.
The messy pile of sand at the top of the picture is actually the turtle nest! At the bottom of the picture is the body pit where the mother turtle laid while she covered her eggs with sand
Once the eggs are found a few are moved to make way for the temperature dataloggers.
Since 2017 NEST has been been doing research on how nest temperatures affect incubation duration. Blue tooth data loggers are installed into all of our nests. We can now predict when the hatchlings will emerge from the nest within just a few days by reading nest temperatures from an app on our phones.
Karen J (center) programs the temperature datalogger that will be placed in the nest
Once the dataloggers are installed, the nest is covered and marked off for around 60 days until the hatchlings emerge. ATV riders check the nest daily and another team of volunteers are tasked with protecting the hatchlings at emergence.
The fabulous team of volunteers of Nest 1!
- nest number: 1
- town: Kitty Hawk
- date eggs laid: 06/06/2023
- actual emergence date: 8/9/2023
- live hatchlings: 49
- total eggs: 124
See all active nests