Last Bird Survey and Night Patrol

We started our day with being able to sleep in. This was a nice time to catch up on some much needed rest as we have been out late most nights. After an enjoyable breakfast we headed off to Keys Beach where we surveyed the local birds and tracked their nests. We walked from one end of the beach to the other end looking for new nests and updating the existing nests. We used a GPS tracker to state the coordinates of where the nests were on the beach. When we found a nest we marked them with washed up sticks so nobody would step on them during night patrol. We were able to help the bird survey team by marking 10 new nests! After a two-hour walk on the beach, we treated ourselves by going to the local bakery. This was a fun experience because we were able to try some of the St. Kitts pastries and put some Caribbean currency into use. We then headed to the grocery store and bought some more snacks for later. We came back to the hotel and rested some more before gathering all of the food to make dinner that night. We had a picnic out by the pool, and enjoyed some more bonding time rather than going out to eat. We talked about how we could as a school, contribute to conserving the environment. Sadly, we went out on our last beach patrol of the trip. This was an interesting experience because we excavated two different Leatherback nest. We had to dig two feet down in order to locate the eggs. The eggs gave off a really bad smell because they were decomposing. We had to count how many eggs there were left, and then open each one separately to record the stages of growth. We fortunately found two baby turtles, one in each nest. This was very rewarding because we were able to save two turtles lives. Once 12:00 am hit, we were sad to say goodbye as we built great relationships with the local volunteers and Dr. Stewart. Saying goodbye to Dr. Stewart was extremely hard because we learned so much from her and she was always so kind and loved her job so much that it made it so much better for us. We are heading home in two days bringing these memories with us that we will keep forever. 

-Matt Peel