Waties Island Sea Turtles

Monday, October 31, 2011

Beach Sweep on Saturday, October 29

A cold, windy start to the day -- but the afternoon cleared up and the sun came out. Nineteen volunteers gathered at the cottage to tackle the cleanup project. We had some first time volunteers from CCU and we were glad to have them join us.

Mary, the photographer from Inlet Point Plantation, was kind enough to take a picture of the group and more of the volunteers in action. Thanks, Mary! (click on any photo to see it larger)

Waties Island Beach Sweep Volunteers

Steve and Debbie filling their bags

Paulette and Diane with one of the 4 tires

There was an amazing amount of stuff we collected - we estimated the weight to be in the neighborhood of 1000 pounds.

- 40 bags of miscellaneous trash - plastic bags, balloons, cans, bottles, food wrappers, clothing, shoes, sunglasses, fishing line, ropes, cigarette lighters, light bulbs, toys and other unidentifiable items
- 4 tires (one was a HUGE tire)
- 2 crab traps
- several oversize plastic bottles and buckets

Bryan took photos of the HUGE tire project at the upper end of the island -

Chance, Brady and Brandy working on that tire

Digging...

and more digging...

Finally got it out

And last, but not least, the trip to the Solid Waste Authority to get rid of all that stuff --

Steve with the haul

Feels good to get it done! Thanks, all, and see you in the spring,

Barb and Steve

Sunday, October 16, 2011

End of the Season Photos

Tracks at P2 today! But not hatchling tracks; deer tracks. No sign of any turtle type activity at the site so we will call it a false crawl.

Tracks at P2 nest site

But deer tracks, not turtle tracks

There were two otters in the marsh this morning chasing schools of small fish around. First time we've ever seen otters there. Exciting!

Just a little head above the water

But an otter for sure

And another beautiful sunrise too -

So our official monitoring season comes to a close with the removal of the last sign.

P2 comes down

Farewell...

This has been a great season made possible by all you wonderful volunteers. Hope to see you all back again next season,

Barb and Steve

Monday, September 12, 2011

More Turtles on Their Way Overnight

The Monday walkers found that Nest 17 (the one right next to the entrance) emerged overnight. There were lots and lots of hatchling tracks heading for the water. One little turtle made a wrong turn and ended up behind the dunes somehow. The walkers followed the tracks and found the turtle. This one didn't make it, but it sure looks like lots of others did.

Check back on Friday for the inventory results!

Barb

Monday, September 5, 2011

Digging Up The Nests

Sunday was cool and sunny on the beach and we set out to conduct two inventories, Nest 9 and the newest emergence, Nest 19. We had the exact location of the nest for #9 and it was our best outcome yet: 125 hatched egg shells and only 5 unhatched eggs. Including the shell taken initially for the DNA project makes a total of 131 eggs laid and a 95.4% hatch success ratio. Amanda's mom was on hand to help out along with Diane and Paulette.

Janet, Paulette and Diane

125 hatched and only 5 unhatched

In the meantime, Dave, Judy, Amanda, Valerie, Dave and Steve were looking for the egg chamber for Nest 19. This one was very tough to find - it was fairly close to the sign showing the general vicinity of where we thought the nest might be (more good luck than good management), but even so we dug for almost two hours without finding it.

Judy, Dave and Amanda start the hunt

Where is it??

So Monday morning, we asked Chris (she was on hand the morning the tracks were found) to help locate the nest. And a very good thing too; she was able to zero in on the location after only a little bit of digging. She dug in by hand and found a live hatchling right at the top of the nest. Guest walker Betty did the escort duties this morning.