Loggerhead Turtle
We arrived at the beach and got settled in. We had rain between Lumberton and the beach and some of that was very heavy and there were flashes of lightening all around. Not a lot of wind, though. At one point we saw a flash of lightening straight ahead of us, probably a mile or so away. Shortly after that we came upon a small fire on the edge of the woods, presumably lit by the lightening. I can’t say I’ve ever seen that before, although I know it’s fairly common. With the rain as heavy as it was, I don’t think the fire was a particular threat.
Loggerhead Turtle
In any case, the real excitement of the day was a turtle next just a few houses up the beach from where we were. The bulk of the turtles had hatched and headed out to see the previous two nights but there were some unaccounted for and we were told that they would be dug up as it got dark. A half dozen or so loggerhead turtles were found and most of them were able to crawl to the surf. Volunteers used red lights to guide them down the sand. With my camera set to ISO 6,400 and with the lens wide open at f/2.8 I was able to get an exposure of 1/100 second. Because of the red lights they are much more natural after I converted them to black and white, so that’s what I am posting here.
These two images are of the same turtle, making its slow trek to the ocean. It’s only about three inches from head to tail and I have no idea what its actual chances of survival are. I can’t imagine they are particularly high, but it made it to the water, anyway.
