"Cockles" was named for a shell because she laid her eggs right at the end of our shell driveway next to our bulkhead. If we had caught her in time as she started nesting, we would have moved her to our sand pile, but by the time we spotted her, she looked like she was actually laying her eggs. Most of our lowest nests on the sand pile have produced hatchlings so we'll hope for the best. We fear for Cockles’ nest due to its location and repeated episodes of being completely underwater. Our driveway nest in shells last year appeared to produce hatchlings (because we found empty eggshells) but that nest was laid in a much higher location toward the road.
Therefore, we have no hatchlings to show you for Cockles. But, although we've completed our advent calendar, our nesting terrapins did not stop at 24! In fact, 29 terrapins nested in our yard this year—a record number for us! We’ll be showing the rest of them to you in the next and final blog for 2025.
Thanks for completing Advent and the 22nd, 23rd and 24th days of December with our sea turtle advent calendar AND celebrating the turtles that laid and were hatched in our yard! Watch for the completion of our celebration of 2025 nesting turtles on the final day of the year…thanks for reading!
