We had our first turtle last night, or rather, early this morning. (The beach is beautiful after midnight, really!) She came up on a "false crawl," which means that she came up and dug a nest, but did not lay any eggs. Amy and I stayed back out of the way during the period she was digging the nest because a) we're the undergrads and b) there are some logistical issues that Lindsey the Grad Student is still working out with the group that runs the beach, so we're all taking a back seat to the beach monitor for now (they have a strict "hands-off" policy--we're here to satellite tag, flipper tag, measure nest depths, count eggs, take hatching blood samples... you can see where a few problems would arise if these goals were not properly communicated). After it became clear that the turtle was not going to be laying eggs and she was moving down through the tree cover to the beach, the beach monitor moved around to the other side of of the brush to follow her down the beach.
And couldn't find her again. Somehow, a one hundred pound GIANT turtle disappeared. *Poof*
After a few minutes of searching, she came over to tell us that she couldn't find the turtle and we all joined in looking. No sign at all of a turtle of any size.
Now the plant cover on this beach is pretty heavy, but this is a big turtle we are talking about. On her way up to the nesting site and while she was digging the nest, she was crashing around and making tons of noise. We should have been able to hear her thrash her way down the beach to the water. Yet she was gone. One last bit to make this even more puzzling--there was not a set of turtle tracks going back to the water, only up the beach.
My theories are either gnomes digging under the beach kidnapped the turtle through a hatch door or the secret agent turtle was silently airlifted out by hot air balloon. You can decide which theory you like better.
Was there a loud, trumpet-like noise at any point?
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