So cool when the turtles come up at dawn… you get to actually see them in the light. And you get to take photos (they don’t appreciate the flash so no photos at night). It’s crazy to be working with them all night long and you’re never really seeing them, not really.

The first two pics are of the mama turtle camouflaging her nest – she’s already laid the eggs and has covered the nest, then she crawls around the area where she nested, flinging sand with her front flippers. In the top pic the blood on her shoulder is from a microchip tag that I’ve just injected there.

In the 3rd pic you can really see how their whitish skin turns pink during the nesting process, they actually heat up quite a bit (they’re technically reptiles, but they’re not really “cold blooded” at all, they can maintain their body heat in really cold water, which is how they manage to hang around off the coast of Nova Scotia feeding on jellyfish… they’ve even been seen swimming among sea ice). You can also see in that pic her hooked mouth which is used to grab jellyfish, and this particular turtle has a big scar on her left shoulder that she probably got from being entangled in a fishing line at one point (“Longlining” for Tuna, Swordfish, Mahi Mahi and all the other fish we like to eat, is killing tons of turtles, not to mention dolphins, sea birds, and so on).  

I finally got her agree to pose for a photo with me, that’s the last pic. She wanted $5 but I convinced her it wouldn’t be any use to her where she was going anyway.  Smile for the camera!