Green sea turtle lays eggs at Corindi Beach near Coffs Harbour

A woman walking her dogs before dawn on a Mid-North Coast beach captured what a turtle expert says is a rare event this far south. See the footage.

A Coffs Coast woman walking her dogs on a local beach before dawn captured the rare moment a female green sea turtle lay a clutch of eggs up in the dunes.

Deb Jeppesen lives at Corindi about 30km north of Coffs Harbour and walks her dogs each morning around 5.30am.

“I saw a large track into the dunes but it didn’t register it could be turtle tracks and then I noticed a big mound of sand on the edge of the dunes – I thought it was a sand castle until I got closer and saw movement,” Ms Jeppesen said.

The large tracks leading up into the dunes at Corindi Beach on Tuesday morning, January 23.

Eventually it registered what she was witnessing and she started to record, making sure she was at least three metres away at all times.

In about five minutes it was all over and the turtle she estimated to be at least one metre wide and over a metre long covered the eggs over and returned to the water.

The turtle laying eggs early in the morning on Tuesday, January 23.

David and Deb Jeppesen walk their dogs Dimi and Lara on Corindi Beach at dawn most days.

Merryn Dunleavy from NSW Turtle Watch said any laying of eggs by the species on NSW beaches was a rare event – let alone caught on camera like this.

Fencing has been set up around the site to warn beach users and Ms Jeppesen is acting as a ‘citizen scientist’ volunteer monitoring the nest and recording data from a temperature logger installed by staff from NSW Turtle Watch based in Brunswick Heads.

Signs have now been erected at Corindi Beach.

Although a rare event on the NSW coast, the incidents of sea turtles laying on beaches further south is increasing but why this is happening is “the million dollar question” according to Ms Dunleavy.

“It could be global warming pushing them further south or some of their regular beaches and habitat have been flooded or aren’t suitable anymore because of erosion,” she said.

Merryn Dunleavy, project officer with NSW Turtle Watch with flatback sea turtles.

One thing she’s more certain about is that hatchlings to emerge from eggs laid in cooler climates are more likely to be males.

Conversely in previous years, rising temperatures where they largely nest in Queensland have led to what Ms Dunleavy calls a “feminisation” of the population.

It is likely the clutch of eggs laid at Corindi Beach will emerge in about a week and it’s also likely few will even make it back to the water.

Mothers can lay as many as seven clutches in a season about two weeks apart and it is likely the Corindi turtle could return to the same spot to lay again.

While each clutch can have as many as 120 eggs, fewer than 1 in 1000 survive to adulthood.

NSW Turtle Watch is funded by the NSW Government and works closely with National Parks and Wildlife.