Talking Turtle

 I had a successful trip north to Pennsylvania to visit family.  Now that I am back, it seems the dog days of summer have definitely arrived.  It has been quite toasty here in Ocracoke.  With the heat we have been happy for the wind, which even now has not let up much.  I continue to walk the beach and have seen many turtle tracks this year.  

Here is one example of the tracks left by a sea turtle on the beach

Ocracoke is part of the Cape Hatteras National Sea Shore.  This is a United States National Park that preserves a portion of the North Carolina Outer Banks.  The national sea shore extends from Bodie Island near Nag's Head, NC south to Ocracoke Island.  This is over 70 miles of sea shore managed by the National Park Service.  Every year hundreds of female sea turtles return to the area  where they were hatched to nest and lay their eggs.  This cycle has continued for thousands of years.  The females crawl out of the ocean at night and lay their eggs, then return before the sunrise.  Nesting occurs May through July.  The first turtle nest here on Ocracoke this year was found May 14th.  

Here is a park service ranger I spotted one morning checking a new nest and marking it so it will not be disturbed by beachgoers.

These are the markers they put around the nests

There are 5 types of sea turtles that will nest along Ocracoke beaches.  The Loggerhead, Green Sea Turtle, Kemp's Ridley, Hawksbill, and Leatherback.  The Loggerhead and Green Sea Turtle are the most common to be found nesting here.  Sea turtles are quite large compared to land turtles, however, they can also be distinguished from large land turtles by their front limbs.  Sea turtles have flippers for front limbs while land turtles have feet with claws.  Sea turtles are long lived animals and females are believed to be near 30 years old before they reach maturity and lay eggs.  The loggerhead will nest about every two to three years.  They will have 2-4 clutches (nests) in a year that they lay eggs.  Each clutch can average about 100 eggs.  It takes about 60 days for the eggs to mature and then hatch.  The sex of the baby turtle hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the sand in which they incubate.  Warmer temperatures produces more females and cooler temps produce more males.  Since the Cape Hatteras National Sea Shore is near the northern most nesting grounds for sea turtles; we tend to produce a larger proportion of male sea turtle hatchlings.  States like Florida and Georgia tend to have a larger proportion of female hatchlings.

Another view of the roped off area around one of the turtle nest on the beach in Ocracoke

The park service drives the beach every morning looking for new turtle nests.  They mark each one and monitor them until the turtles hatch.

Park service ranger riding his gator down the beach in the morning

Here is another set of tracks I came upon one morning.  This girl did a small circle about halfway up the beach before continuing.

As I mentioned above, after about 60 days the eggs will hatch.  Baby sea turtles hatch at night.  They use both the slope of the beach and the moon light to help direct them to the ocean.  Motor vehicles are not allowed on the beach after dark until after nesting season is over (usually end of September).  You may walk the beach at night; however, you are asked to not use a flashlight or other light source and not have camp fires on the beach until after turtle season is over.  These lights can confuse hatchlings and prevent them from making it into the ocean.  

This nest is soon ready to hatch and the park service has erected some barriers to help get the hatchlings started toward the ocean.  The black plastic is surrounding the nest so when the baby turtles emerge they are directed toward the ocean right from the start.

The number of nesting turtles has increased since the park service started keeping track of them in the  1980s.  The most nests recorded happened in 2019 with a banner 473 nests.  This blew away the old record of 327 nests in 2016.  This year's numbers are not complete but I found one site that has recorded 208 nests so far this season.

Hopefully this year will be a successful turtles season.  It would be really cool to see a nest hatch, however since this happens at night and there is no way to know exactly what night it might be; I will not be sleeping on the beach.  Keith and I did take a sunset "scud" (drive around) on the beach with the Jeep just the other day.  We had to be off  by 9PM.  The sand dunes and sunset made it look like a moonscape.

Sand dunes Ocracoke beach

Usually around the middle of September the turtles will have all hatched and the park service removes the 9PM to 6AM restrictions on vehicles on the beach.  Until then we head off around sunset.