A Perdido Key Morning

The day started very early here... I had to be back in Gulf Breeze for the ridleys, so I started to Perdido in the wee hours. I had a turtle patrol to do, and two nests to assess.



I rode my ATV down to the east end of Perdido before dawn, checking for turtle tracks and hatchling tracks and signs of erosion. The surf was calm, but this chair was a little funny. I wonder what the story was there...



The first nest I assessed, PK6131 (a June 13th nest), had a fantastic hatch. I haven't crunched the numbers yet, but it will be in the high 90s. This one last hatchling was waiting at the very bottom of the 20 inch egg chamber. Now s/he's swimming happily in the Gulf of Mexico.



PK6071 didn't have any more hatchlings, but it looks like there was one very recently! Check out that lovely crawl. The hatchling crawled to the gulf on his own... Usually, we like to shepherd them, especially on a relocated nest as they are often over a hundred feet from the Gulf. That's a lot of sand to get lost on when your head is only a few centimeters off the ground!

It was a gorgeous start to a great day!