The turtle transcript. Part 2. Scoot'n with ladies.

West point on Dirk Hartog Island

 

We were expertly told by Officer Locke how, where and when to tag the turtles that first night.

First of all we had red light settings on our torches. Loggerhead turtles don’t like the bright, white lights and are likely to try and run??? to the water as quick as they can, which isn’t really that quick at all, if disturbed. 

 

 

Shhh

 

Sneaking up to your first turtle from behind, as quiet as the mice of Cape Inscription, donning  a red headlight is exhilarating to say the least. On hands and knees we crawled slowly through the sand and sat down behind the turtle. Steve would give quiet, patient explanations about the egg laying process.



One of the first turtles we spotted.

It is truly amazing what the Loggerhead  turtle does when its on the beach. Caretta Caretta (Latin for Loggerhead turtle) move slowly but powerfully up the beach, leaving a trail behind for the tagger to see. The easiest way to spot a turtle is by looking for tracks. After several days of tagging, we even knew if a turtle had a return track back to the water and not to bother investigating the dune's edge for its whereabouts.

 

Tracks in and out of the beach during daylight

Loggy finds herself a good place to make a pit, slightly bigger than its own body, usually somewhere above the high-tide mark and mainly before the start of the dunes. We call swishing around the sand in that first stage, pitting. Turtles do everything at their own individual pace, but after some time they start building their egg chamber. Amazingly they do this with their hind flippers in a breaststroke, digging kind of action or a wax-on ,wax-off motion. I have seen cavities at least 500mm deep which can take a long time to construct. Then, suddenly, all gets quiet. The turtle has positionsed her body diagonally across the pit with her back end over the chamber. We were told that this is the moment the turtles don't feel a thing due to hormonal painkillers provided by mother nature.

 

A pitt for laying eggs or to stumble in

I had the absolute privilege to see the eggs drop into the chamber close up. It is a beautiful moment which will be imprinted into my semi-grey matter forever. With my little red torch lighting up the scene dimly, I saw the miniature elephant trunk like cloaca (yes, I am hoping you are learning something new here) move forward and then backwards as if contracting. Covered in a slimy substance, round fair -sized eggs dropped down from the cloaca into the chamber.

 

Looking into the chamber underneath the turtle at the eggs by red light

 

 

 

Some turtles are prolific and fill up their chamber to the brim, some just lay a couple and have had enough. Laying procedures come to an abrupt halt when she decides to start covering up the chamber with sand by an almost reverse wax-on, wax-off motion which ends up in a firm flipper full of sand pat-down on top of the eggs. Beach Tai Chi at its best. Throughout the five nights we realize that this is the best moment to tag her while she is still under the influence of natures cocktail of drugs and is worn out from the monumental task that is egg-laying on the beach. 

 

 

 

The multiple use cloaca 

 

 

 

After packing down her eggs with sand, the turtle now reveals her mistress stroke of deception. This is a process called ‘misting’. The only way I can describe it properly, is that it looks like she is trying to swim on dry land. A fine spray of sand is flicked up backwards over the hollow leaving no trace of disturbance. In fact, a fake pit is created right next to the heaped misted sand and therefore tricking every egg predator into searching  the wrong spot. Very clever.  It is not a good idea to sit behind the turtle when it’s misting if you don’t want to be covered in sand. Even more cunning is that the fake pits are left for those unsuspected, tired, turtle taggers to stumble in. This happened time and time again, until we accepted the turtle had ‘one-over’ on us in those long, dark nights and we just kept on stumblin'. I can imagine her smiling each time we went down. After her dry swim, she returned exhausted back to the ocean. She slowed down considerably from the breakneck speed displayed when first entering the beach and takes many a breather on the way out. Sometimes there is a clear passage to the shore and she will disappear in an instant, sometimes she gets stuck behind a rock or on top of a rocky reef. Patiently she will wait to coolly ride the next outgoing wave. The surf will carry her off any obstacle and soon she will disappear in the dark water.

 

 

 

A Ghost crab and egg predator

 

 

 

 



Grey Bits

Phone (08) 9948 2226 or click on the following links www.sharkbay.org, www.dpaw.wa.gov.au for more information on turtle tagging..



Turtle Bay overlooking beach 3, 4 and 5.

 

 

Some nights the tagging was a bit slow due to the turtles numbers being low. If the decision was made to wait for  a turtle to finish laying her eggs, we got comfortable by shoving our back-sides forward and backwards in the sand and laying down in the pit we created. This process we called  “scoot’n”.

 

  



Photo taken during an excursion to Dampiers landing