Look at that beautiful blue eye. As this turtle was laying 118 eggs, I was looking right into that eye.
On Saturday, Mark and I decided on a whim to drive to Bundaberg, about four hours north of Brisbane. Just outside the city is Mon Repos, a rookery that hosts the largest number of nesting Loggerhead sea turtles in the world. Each year, between November and February, 400 turtles make their way to Mon Repos, laying eggs in over 1,000 nests. We were blessed to see two of those turtles up close.
Each night, visitors to the rookery are divided into large groups. While volunteers and researchers patrol the each for turtles, visitors wait at the information center. Mark and I sat in an outdoor ampitheatre, alternating between watching films on turtles, and watching the stars in the clear, dark, southern sky.
Finally, a turtle was spotted on the beach. Before they begin laying eggs, turtles are easily disturbed, especially by light. Because of that, we followed a walkway down to the beach in the pitch dark - I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.
As we walked along the beach, we noticed a strip of sand darker than the rest - a turtle track, leading toward the dunes. Because of the recent cyclone, the beach was washed out, and just above the high tide mark the dunes formed a sharp drop, about two feet high. Somehow, our turtle had managed to make her way over this cliff and into the dunes, just where she was supposed to be laying her eggs.
Because she had already begun digging, our guides were able to shine a light behind her, at an angle that she couldn't see. We gathered behind and watched her digging the nest - reach down, scoop, and dump. It was amazing. I always thought that turtles just sort of pushed the sand away with their flippers, but nest digging is a precision job. She reached in, one flipper at a time, and cupped the end of the flipped, scooping the sand. When she came up, she rotated her flipper just like a wrist, to dump the sand out of her way.
When she was finished digging the nest and laying eggs, she began filling in. First, she used her back flippers to fill in the deepest part of the nest, which went down about two feet in a pear shape. Then, she used all four flippers to turn her body and cover the hole her body had made in the sand. And once that turtle decided she was ready to get back into the water, it was instant. I thought that turtles were slow and clumsy on land, but I was wrong. Every movement was streamlined and precise.
Once the turtle had returned to the sea, we returned to the visitor's center. We were told we could wait around to see if any nests hatched, but nothing was guaranteed. Of course, we opted to wait around, and after a bit we were told there was another nesting turtle on the beach. Most people decided to wait for hatchlings, and only six of us went down to the beach.
The second turtle was just beginning to dig her nest, so we had a bit of waiting to do. She had picked a spot below the steep dunes that I mentioned earlier, which meant that we would need to relocate the nest so it would be safe from high tides. As one of the volunteers was searching the dunes for a good place to relocate the nest, he found two hatchings!
These little guys were amazing! They were smaller than the palm of my hand, but so strong. As the ranger held them, their flippers just didn't stop moving - even as they were held by these strange giants, the hatchlings were completely consumed by their instinct to get to the water. The ranger held them out, and I was able to feel the flippers of minutes-old turtles running across my hand with surprising strength. After we had all had a look, the hatchings were put back in the sand, and we watched while the tiny little creatures were swept into the Pacific.
By then, the mother turtle was laying her eggs - all 118 of them. We were able to move around, watching eggs drop into the nest, and then coming face to face with the turtle. I was able to get down on my belly, right on her, and look into her eye.
After the mother had returned the the water, we needed to move the nest. The ranger dug up all 118 eggs, and placed them, still warm, into our hands. How the massive animals we had just seen came from these soft eggs that looked just like ping pong balls is a wonder. We moved the eggs, four at a time, to the new nest, safely above the high water mark. In nine weeks, over 100 little hatchings will poke out of the sand in that spot, and begin their frantic run to the ocean, starting the whole thrilling cycle over again.
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| Holding Hatchlings |
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| Mommy #2 |
See Facebook for all the pictures.
