Today my dad woke me up at 5:10 AM so we could be ready for our morning beach patrol. We drove a short five minutes to where the volunteers stay and when we arrived they were standing in their bright green reflective vests with their bikes. It looked cool in the early dawn sun.
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| Ready for the ride to my beach survey. |
After a few minutes we were assigned our team, which was led by Emily. We started to ride to our beach location and I saw very bright lights in the sky, and when they came closer I saw it was a Star Alliance A320. Our beach locations are all right next to the airport!
We rode for about 20 minutes to our first beach. When we arrived at each beach, the team leader recorded the start time and the GPS coordinates of the starting location. I read the coordinates from the GPS device to the recorder a few times. We then walked the beach looking for track marks similar to what we did with CWC in Florida. When we reached the end of each beach, the GPS coordinates were recorded again. We then returned to the starting point and recorded the end time.
We surveyed a total of four beaches between about 6:10 AM and 7:45. The most nests any of the beaches had was eight, and the smallest beach had only one nest. This nest is ready to hatch any day. The nesting dates and locations are all recorded with Wildlife Sense.
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| Nest on Eglina Beach. |
Tonight at 9:20 I will go out on a light pollution and hatchling rescue patrol. I am tired but I am excited about going out to possibly see hatchlings emerging from their nests. Stay tuned...
Sammuel What a wonderful experience. I hop you get to see some hatchlings.How many people in all were with you onyour beach patrol. From the map picture of your island kefalonia on the iona sea it seems that the habitat surroucing the beaches and there for the nests would have different predators than here in Venice i.e. the armandillo? (sp) I hope you get to jump in the beautiful,pristine water and relax. love to all 441
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