Our first hatchlings!!!

It is official! The hatching season is upon us. This morning I was priviledged enough to find the tracks from 2 nests of around 80 hatchlings as well as 15 that we saved from almost certain death from overheating or pure exhaustion!
It turns out however that these hatchlings were not from Dalyan beach, but from Sarigerme near Dalaman. This is one of the other beaches that we patrol but that is not protected and we don't do it everyday. Unfortunately we forgot our cameras but thanks to the trusty fancy phones I managed to get a few photos for you.

I have been informed that Sarigerme nests always hatch before the Dalyan ones due to the hotter stonier sand, but, our first nest in Dalyan is due to hatch any day so fingers crossed for some healthy babies.

Another rather yucky part of the job is checking the nest for any unfertilised or unfinished eggs, this involves looking for any left over eggs and breaking them apart. Some eggs contained lots of parasites and others weren't even fertilised (if they are fertilised the yolk will cling to the egg at a certain growth point) and just a few had signs of embryos in them, but I can safely say I will never get used to the smell of the essentially rotten eggs!!! 


In other news, temperatures are rising here in Turkey, and our air con is our biggest luxury!!
We have had several new tanks arrive ready and waiting for the hatchlings on Dalyan beach and the nesting of the turtles has started to slow down.
Hopefully some hatchlings in Dalyan soon!!




Total nests: 249!