Bald Head Island Conservancy

Our turtle nests have started hatching!

Loggerhead sea turtle nests take about 60 days to incubate. When the eggs hatch the baby turtles or hatchlings "boil" out of the nest, that is they all crawl out at the same time. Three days after the nest "boils" the BHIC sea turtle team excavates the nests to determine how many eggs were laid and how many of the eggs successfully hatched. Sometimes we find live hatchlings in the nest when this happens we carefully remove them and release them into the ocean.

You can join us for one of the excavations by checking the website for dates and times or find flyers at Turtle Central. The table bellow contains information for nests that have already been excavated. The turtles that have "names" in the last column are satellite tagged turtles. Click on the turtle's name to see where she's traveling!

Nest#	Species	Hatch Date	Total Number of Eggs	Number of Eggs Hatched	Turtle's Name
1	loggerhead	7/22/08	148	141
2	loggerhead	7/24/08	140	124
3	loggerhead	7/29/08	142	140
4	loggerhead	?	11 (predated)	10
5	loggerhead	8/1/08	96	55
6	loggerhead	7/27/08	105	103
7	loggerhead	7/26/08	101	94
8	loggerhead	7/29/08	144	128
9	loggerhead	7/27/08	139	128
10	loggerhead	-	LOST - fox predation	LOST
11	loggerhead	8/2/08	85	81
12	loggerhead
13	loggerhead	7/31/08	141	136
14	loggerhead	8/3/08	114	105
15	loggerhead
16	loggerhead	8/2/08	125	110
17	loggerhead	8/3/08	93	74
18	loggerhead
19	loggerhead	8/5/08	90	86
20	loggerhead	8/8/08	114	72
21	loggerhead	8/5/08	142	133
22	loggerhead	8/6/08	124	117
23	loggerhead
24	loggerhead	8/9/08	91	87
25	loggerhead	8/14/08	109	105
26	loggerhead	8/16/08	134	124	Uga VI
27	loggerhead	8/9/08	96	94
28	loggerhead	8/12/08	149	144
29	loggerhead	8/13/08	100	94
30	loggerhead	8/13/08	123	112
31	loggerhead
32	loggerhead
33	loggerhead	8/13/08	150	135
34	loggerhead	8/19/08
35	loggerhead	8/18/08
36	loggerhead
37	loggerhead
38	loggerhead
39	loggerhead	8/13/08	96	96
40	loggerhead	8/17/08
41	loggerhead
42	loggerhead	8/17/08	121	117
43	loggerhead
44	loggerhead
45	loggerhead
46	loggerhead
47	loggerhead
48	loggerhead
49	loggerhead
50	loggerhead
51	loggerhead
52	loggerhead
53	loggerhead
54	loggerhead
55	loggerhead
56	loggerhead
67	loggerhead
58	loggerhead
59	loggerhead
60	loggerhead
61	loggerhead
62	loggerhead
63	loggerhead
64	loggerhead
65	loggerhead
66	loggerhead
67	loggerhead
68	loggerhead
69	loggerhead
70	loggerhead
71	loggerhead
72	loggerhead
73	loggerhead
74	loggerhead
75	loggerhead
76	loggerhead
77	loggerhead
78	loggerhead
79	loggerhead
80	loggerhead
81	loggerhead
82	loggerhead
83	loggerhead
84	loggerhead
85	loggerhead
86	loggerhead
87	loggerhead
88	loggerhead
89	loggerhead
90	loggerhead
91	loggerhead
92	loggerhead
93	loggerhead
94	loggerhead
95	loggerhead
96	loggerhead
97	loggerhead
98	loggerhead
99	loggerhead
100	loggerhead
101	loggerhead
102	loggerhead
103	loggerhead

These photos were taken at two of this season's nest excavations. The individuals wearing the bright green shirts are nest monitors. Nest monitors are Conservancy trained volunteers and island residents that watch over the sea turtle nests for the approximate two month incubation period. They also assist Conservancy staff and interns with turtle nestings, hatchings, and excavations. Every turtle nest is excavated - or dug up - 72 hours after it "boils" or hatches. We conduct excavations to count the number of eggshells, unhatched eggs, dead hatchlings, and live hatchlings in each nest and from that data we determine the success of the nest.

A junior nest monitor holds a hatchling from the excavation of nest #2. This hatchling was allowed to crawl its way to the ocean after being photographed and observed by those attending the public excavation.

If you look closely you can see that these folks are watching a little loggerhead hatchling crawl its way into the ocean.

These hatchlings were found when we excavated nest #24 up east beach. We found a total of eight fiesty hatchlings that were