Diamondback Terrapin Nesting Season Begins in the Great White North

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Diamondback Terrapin Nesting Tracks @ Aucoot Cove

Fresh from his graduation yesterday from Williams College (see below), Turtle Journal’s Jared Nourse patrolled the barrier beach at Aucoot Cove in Marion this morning.  He discovered diamondback terrapin nesting tracks, the first of the 2011 season, in the soft sand about 30 minutes before high tide in Buzzards Bay.  He and Sue Wieber Nourse found three sets of tracks on the beach, which may have come from a single terrapin female in multiple runs to find her perfect nesting spot.  Today’s find by Jared and Sue confirm observations in Wellfleet on the Outer Cape that female terrapins had begun to disperse from mating aggregations, presumably migrating to the vicinity of their nesting sites.  All principal investigators have been alerted from Mount Hope Bay to the tip of Cape Cod that nesting season for diamondback terrapins in the Great White North has begun.

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