Turtle's Interesting Life

 Sea turtles are air-breathing reptiles remarkably adapted to life in the sea. Their streamlined shape, large size and powerful flippers enable them to dive to great depths and travel long distances.
The only time sea turtles leave the ocean is when females emerge to lay their eggs on a sandy beach.
A turtle must drag her great weight ashore, dig a nest, deposit about one hundred eggs, and cover and conceal the nest before returning to sea. The arduous process of nesting can take up to three hours.

 Nests are found by walkers the next morning. It looks as if a tractor has emerged from the ocean, turned around and gone back in the ocean.
The mother turtle leaves her eggs to incubate in the warm sand and never visits her nest again. A female will usually lay several nests during one season and many nest every two to three years.
Volunteers mark the nest for monitoring because the tracks and body pit containing the egg clutch are quickly obliterated by the wind, human foot traffic.
Here in the sugar sand of South Walton, the average incubation time for the eggs to hatch is about 62 days.

A joyful site is a succesfully hatched nest! This hatched nest was found at dawn. All hatchlings emerged about the same time, and left baby tractor tracks as they scurried directly to the ocean, in synch with the divine plan. This is not always the case anymore.