Georgia recorded the first sea turtle nest of 2016 on Tuesday. A loggerhead crawled ashore on Cumberland, giving the island the honor of hosting that nest, which was documented by Laura Buckmaster of the Georgia Conservancy and Doug Hoffman of the National Park Service.

If all goes as expected, the nest will be the first of thousands. Last year, Peach State beaches had a record 2,319 loggerhead nests, continuing an apparent upward trend in the population of this species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Loggerheads, which grow up to 4 feet long and weigh 200 to 400 pounds, are the main sea turtle visitors to Georgia beaches. They nest at night, typically at the base of the dunes every two or more years, laying up to 150 eggs at a time in multiple nests over the season.

As the southernmost and largest of Georgia's barrier islands, it's no surprise that Cumberland claimed the first nest. It routinely does, although the 200 or so professionals and volunteers who patrol the state's beaches all the way up to Tybee take pride in finding that first nest on "their" beach. Loggerhead nesting usually begins in early May and hits full stride by June.

State sea turtle coordinator Mark Dodd of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources is expecting another busy year - possibly even another record year, like 2015 - for the Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative, a DNR-coordinated network of volunteers, researchers and agency employees who patrol Georgia's barrier island beaches daily during nesting season and mark, monitor and protect sea turtle nests.

"By May 15 everybody's got to be surveying," Dodd said. "We're all lucky live on the coast. For us this is our annual ritual so it's pretty cool."

The cooperative documented a record 2,333 nests last year. Along with the 2,319 laid by loggerheads, the remainder were identified as green, leatherback and Kemp's ridley sea turtles and a handful of "unknowns." Nesting previously peaked at 2,289 loggerhead nests in 2013.

Although the total dipped to 1,201 in 2014, analysis shows the highs weren't a fluke. Statistically, loggerhead nesting is increasing about 3 percent a year in Georgia. Nesting in Florida and the Carolinas is also trending upward. The recovery goal, set in a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries plan, is 2 percent a year for 50 years, resulting in 2,800 nests a year, a mark Georgia could reach by about 2020.

Dodd, who works for DNR's Nongame Conservation Section, predicts another strong showing this summer. Though annual levels fluctuate, "We usually have a low year and two medium to high years," he said. "We had a low year in 2014. So we're expecting a good year," following last summer's record.

Those patterns are backed by University of Georgia genetic analysis documenting the number and relatedness of loggerheads nesting on the state's coast. As with other nests, one egg was collected from the Cumberland nest for research, less than 1 percent of the average clutch size on the island. Hoffman covered the nest with a screen to protect the eggs from coyotes and other predators.