{"id":4875,"date":"2001-04-03T20:20:47","date_gmt":"2001-04-04T01:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=4875"},"modified":"2010-03-03T20:29:22","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T01:29:22","slug":"more-nests-discovered-and-an-old-fatality-%e2%80%94-3-april-2001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=4875","title":{"rendered":"More Nests Discovered and an Old Fatality \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 3 April 2001"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"04-03-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Terrapins Nest at Crest of Hill in Walkway of Cottage<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bright sunshine this morning broke a string of gloomy overcast that has gripped the Cape for weeks on end.\u00c2\u00a0 The mutts and I exploited this break to scout some new areas where we had seen terrapins heading during last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nesting season.\u00c2\u00a0 Along the wrack line beyond Lieutenant Island\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Turtle Point and behind Round Island, there rises a bearberry hill, thickly vegetated to a depth of nearly a foot and liberally sprinkled with beach plum and pitch pine.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtles negotiate this passage like porpoises in heavy surf, submerging and breaching in waves of cresting ground cover.<\/p>\n

\"04-03-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Scutes from Large Female Terrapin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Summer never afforded the opportunity to track these turtles to their nesting site.\u00c2\u00a0 But with blue skies and time to spare, today offered that chance.\u00c2\u00a0 We trudged through the bushes and focused on the only clear area immediately surrounding a seasonal cottage atop the hillside.\u00c2\u00a0 As we crossed a predator trail midway to the summit, I spied two dried pleural scute bones from a large mature female that apparently didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t complete the round-trip nesting run.<\/p>\n

\"04-03-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Terrapin Egg Shards<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A\u00c2\u00a0spot of loose soil at the edge of the cottage\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s backyard decking proved too seductive for a nesting terrapin to resist.\u00c2\u00a0 With a warm southwest exposure, and human scents\u00c2\u00a0aplenty to\u00c2\u00a0scare off predators, it was highly successful too.\u00c2\u00a0 Several egg shells had been exposed by the rainy deluge we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve endured this last week.\u00c2\u00a0 I excavated two nests to recover a total of 26 hatched eggs: 14 from one and 12 from the other.<\/p>\n

\"04-03-4<\/a><\/p>\n

South Lieutenant Island Marsh and Round Island in Background<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u00c2\u00a0still marvel, though,\u00c2\u00a0at the stubborn endurance of tiny one-inch, quarter-ounce hatchlings.\u00c2\u00a0 From these nests, they forge a quarter-mile path through walls of vegetation and a backfield of predators\u00c2\u00a0to reach the distant safety of their marsh habitat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Terrapins Nest at Crest of Hill in Walkway of Cottage Bright sunshine this morning broke a string of gloomy overcast that has gripped the Cape for weeks on end.\u00c2\u00a0 The mutts and I exploited this break to scout some new areas where we had seen terrapins heading during last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nesting season.\u00c2\u00a0 Along the wrack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4875"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4884,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4875\/revisions\/4884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}