The Sea Turtle: Love is in the Preparation (Reptile)

The first time I saw a mama sea turtle nesting, I was simply wowed. Then I joined a turtle walk at Loggerhead MarineLife Center, right down the beach from me, and had the joy and thrill of learning so much about these magnificent animals while we waited for the radio call: OK, there's a turtle beginning to nest — come on down!

What we witnessed was breathtaking.

This 250-plus pound mama loggerhead had dragged herself up the beach and dug a perfect egg chamber a couple of feet deep using only her small rear flippers. She was now in a trance, focused solely on dropping around 100 perfect, golf-ball-sized eggs into what would be their home for the next 60 days.

Having done this childbirth thing myself, I was full of admiration for the adaptations that have kept these ladies reproducing for over 100 million years. That trance likely spares her the full weight of the pain and keeps her focused. I mean, come on moms — would you lay 3 to 7 nests like this most summers for the rest of your life if you fully felt each of those eggs squeezing through?!

Once she finishes, she wakes from her trance, uses her flippers to gently refill the chamber with sand, and then spends considerable time and energy camouflaging her nest so predators cannot find it. Clearly exhausted, she drags herself back to the sea, never to meet her offspring. Truly, it's probably a good thing for her motivation to never meet them — the odds of a hatchling reaching adulthood are steep. So many predators, such fragile and delicious prey.

What I've come to witness, beyond the spectacle, is the staggering intentionality of each mama's effort. She has likely traveled thousands of miles from her wintering grounds back to her natal beach — the same beach where she was born. Then she often false crawls, sensing that something isn't quite right, and returns to the ocean to try again later or another day. She will not settle for a spot that doesn't feel ideal.