Day 10 - Beach and Night Survey
I couldn’t sleep yesterday morning so I read my book for a while once we got back from night survey. Poppy, Talitha and I headed down to Bathway beach for a couple of hours. I read my book and the others went snorkelling while I watched our bags. At Half 2 Tom picked up Poppy and I on the way to Levera. Poppy, Mandy, Tom and I had the job of beach profiling. We had to measure the distance from the beach markers to the end of he vegetation and to the high water mark. It was sooooo hot, I thought I was going to die from heat exhaustion! When that was done we headed back to the house. It was my job to sweep the car of sand so I did that after beach profiling.
For Dinner Mandy made a veg chilli with mash potato which was yummy and then I read some more before heading to Levera for Night Survey again. Steph, Praggi, Lawson, Talitha and I were on duty. Steph, Lawson, Talitha and I went out on the first run, we also had some hatchlings to release as well. They again were just as diddly as the others! Circling and needing guidance to the sea, hopefully they make it to adulthood! We saw lots of hatchling tracks in the sand but no adult females. Talitha and Praggi went on the second run and then we alternated from there on. On my second run we saw two females nesting. The first was already laying when we found her and she was past marker z so we had to relocate her eggs. The second was emerging so we waited a while until she had eventually dug her nest and laid her eggs. We didn’t see any more females the rest of the night and Praggi and Talitha didn’t see any! We went on my last run just before 4am and once at the other end set our half hour alarms and went to sleep, I woke up when my alarm went off and waited for Steph to wake but must’ve fallen asleep and we woke at 5am! Oops, we then had to measure the nest positions and rake over the nests before we left. We also found a few hatchling which will be released this evening.
For Dinner Mandy made a veg chilli with mash potato which was yummy and then I read some more before heading to Levera for Night Survey again. Steph, Praggi, Lawson, Talitha and I were on duty. Steph, Lawson, Talitha and I went out on the first run, we also had some hatchlings to release as well. They again were just as diddly as the others! Circling and needing guidance to the sea, hopefully they make it to adulthood! We saw lots of hatchling tracks in the sand but no adult females. Talitha and Praggi went on the second run and then we alternated from there on. On my second run we saw two females nesting. The first was already laying when we found her and she was past marker z so we had to relocate her eggs. The second was emerging so we waited a while until she had eventually dug her nest and laid her eggs. We didn’t see any more females the rest of the night and Praggi and Talitha didn’t see any! We went on my last run just before 4am and once at the other end set our half hour alarms and went to sleep, I woke up when my alarm went off and waited for Steph to wake but must’ve fallen asleep and we woke at 5am! Oops, we then had to measure the nest positions and rake over the nests before we left. We also found a few hatchling which will be released this evening.
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