Rare daytime turtle sighting...

[singinchicken]

Wasn't sure where to put this since so here it is...
Kurt...if it needs to be somewhere else, feel free to move it...

There was a rare daytime egg laying on St. George Island. Sounds like it happened in June, but the AJC just ran an article on it. Seems that everybody behaved. Here's a link to the pictures. You may have to register with the AJC, but it's free...

http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view/travel/southeast/trip-turtle/

[ASH]

That it was a Loggerhead is truly rare. Kemp's Ridley Turtles will nest during the day, but all the others typically go at night.

[Smiling JOe]

St George Island -- "A sunny place for shady people."

[pbyrum]

:D
What an awesome site. We went to Costa Rica 2 years ago with the soul purpose to see turtles nesting. We saw the entire process including moving a nest that was too close to the water line.
WOW! It was amazing.
Patsy

[Lady D]

Wow, great pictures. Truly amazing. You usually see wood stakes with rope around a turtle nest to keep people from disturbing it. I hope this was done with this one. The ones I saw at Inlet Beach were enclosed in that manner.

[JacksonBeachBum]

I've seen that sometimes they move the nests when they are too close to the water. I was wondering why the one in Inlet Beach that was so close to the water wasn't moved. I was there last month and the waves from Hurricane Dolly washed it away.

[ASH]

Any nests that get up against a seawall cannot be moved. Otherwise a close investigation is done to determine what the risk might be to move the nest and it is moved if it is too close to the water.
In the event that the nest is missed and a certain amount of time passes, the nest is not moved either due to the orientation of the turtle within the egg as the turtle attaches to the side and moving the nest could shift the orientation and potentially impact the development within the egg. I may not be explaining that absolutely correct, but it is something like this.
A Leatherback nest cannot be moved simply due to the size of the nest makes it virtually impossible to find the eggs. The mother does a very great job of camoflaging the basketball size opening by trashing a 400 square foot or more area in the nest.
The storm the other day washed out at least one nest in the area and washed over the tops of several others. We need to cross our fingers that the remaining eggs survived the wash over. They should have.

[Cork On the Ocean]

Absolutely very cool SC. I've been out at 5:00 looking for them and couldn't find any and this gal just walked right on up in front of people and everything. I would have loved to have seen that! Thanks for the pic!