Monday, May 25, 2009

Big rush!

It's been a busy morning. The attempted nest on Alagadi from the day before turned out to be an actual nest. I was able to locate it more easily with the self guiding pokey stick that I fashioned. So that is all caged up on Alagadi 2 now. Officially the first green nest of the season and on the night of 23rd May this is very early, greens normally arriving later than loggerheads. Tofas and I also checked the beaches between Alagadi and Kaplica and found two loggerhead nests at Tatlisu. One of these was too close to the sea and would have been washed away, so I excavated it and moved the nest further up the beach, being careful to recreate the nest to the same dimensions as the original. 130 eggs in this nest, which is a huge number for a loggerhead. Tofas was happy. A tractor had been across Tatlisu beach and its tyre tracks narrowly missed the egg chamber of one of the loggerhead nests. With a green nest so early on and with the loggerheads really getting off to a good start, it looks as though we may be in for a busy season and that makes me happy. But I still don’t want to jump to conclusions.

I have brought a kayak and am now off for a paddle around the coast hoping to spot some mating turtles. Project Coordinators Brendan Godley and Annette Broderick are arriving tonight for a week so I’m looking forward to catching up with them and their two children.

Ainslie the first volunteer arrives tomorrow night. She is bringing my camera so we will be able to illustrate these blog posts from Tuesday.

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