It's often said what a privilege it is to attend a birth, and so it was in July that I felt lucky to witness the moments after the birth — by hatching — of a Green Turtle.

I'd been enjoying the simple pleasure of a moonlight stroll along a beach on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica in Central America, when my girlfriend spotted something scurrying in the sand. I turned on the flashlight. It was a tiny turtle, which must have just hatched and was hefting itself down the sand to the sea.

I turned off the flashlight, because turtle hatchlings orient themselves by the reflection of moonlight on the sea. We followed the turtle as it struggled to the surf — and as soon as the first wave washed over it, it swam fast and easy. Only then did we notice dozens of tiny flipper-print tracks leading down to the ocean: We must have just caught the last of a mass hatching.