May 27 2010, Douglas Raynor Sanctuary at Nockum Hill, Barrington, RI 11:30 to 1:30pm sunny, 75'

We watched this turtle lay her eggs from 20 feet away and then it walked right past us on its way back to the bay!











Today was one of those days when you know you are going to get an amazing bird but you don't and get depressed. Luckily for me I didn't expect to get anything great and was just going to be depressed — nah, I'm just kidding about I expected we would get something great but not anything to do with birds. As I had foreseen, we didn't see anything out of the ordinary for birds at Nockum Hill. But the real excitement lay in and on the ground: dozens of Diamondback Terrapins (endangered) drag their bodies out of the Narragensett Bay every year to nest on the sandy earth of this refugee. Volunteers mark the turtles and protect the eggs with cages and boxes or else the gnashing teeth of Raccoons and other nighttime predators would gobble them down in a wink. Sadly the volunteers cannot locate every nest and each and every year eggshells litter the ground telling the sad story of the hunters and the hunted. Most animals in peril can move themselves away from the area as a defense but these poor buried egg-bound creatures can't do much other than hope that they wouldn't be a skunks next dinner.

We didn't see much more wildlife other then terrapins though I did pish in a Common Yellowthroat.

Here is a good link to information about the terrapins and the volunteers.