Bingo! It was a banner day for Leatherback hatchlings yesterday! As I was walking by the last of three Leatherback nests on our stretch of beach, I noticed about 10 hatchling noses sticking up just above the surface of the sand in the nest. I was concerned that these hatchlings were going to try to head for the ocean during the heat of the day (the sun was already up and it was getting hot!). Many times, if that happens, lots of the hatchlings get disoriented by the sun and may travel parallel to the water for many hundreds of yards, get turned over, or just plain tire out and die on the sand. As I was pondering what to do (it's illegal for anyone other than designated environmental scientists to touch or impede the progress of the hatchlings), I saw an EAI scientist on her 4-wheel beach cycle checking out nests to the south of my location. As she came nearer, I flagged her down and explained what I had seen in that particular nest. The EAI employee's name is Carrie and she agreed that these hatchlings weren't going to wait for nightfall before they treked to the water. She called her supervisor (I think that it may have been Nickie, who I introduced in a previous blog entry) to discuss the situation. They decided that it would be best for Carrie to dig up the hatchlings near the top of the nest and place them on the beach near the water so that they could crawl the last 10-20 yards to the water. By the time Carrie collected all of the hatchlings that she could find near the surface, she ended up with 64 Leatherback hatchlings in her bucket! She then released them one at a time on the beach and we watched them all successfully crawl to the ocean and disappear. Since the ocean was relatively calm, we were able to see many small heads popping up, from time to time, on the water's surface. It was probably one of the best "hatchling events" that I have experienced since we started tracking sea turtle nests on our stretch of beach!