Season is Heating Up!

A false crawl yesterday and a nest today - this makes three on the beach now.  Chelsey just rejoined us today after returning from her honeymoon.


Today's nest was right in front of Marker 6, but it was laid in between the two lines of wrack (those brown spartina weeds that have washed up over the last few weeks).  This makes it in danger of being washed away in high tides, so it was decided to move the nest up higher on the face of the dunes.

Chelsey digging 

While Steve and Steve dug a new nest (which we know those hatchlings will enjoy), Chelsey and Chris carefully removed the eggs from the original nest.  Paulette took the egg for the DNA sample down to the waterline where she put the eggshell into the vial of alcohol.

Paulette collecting the eggshell for DNA testing

The start of the removal process

All the eggs

The new nest site

Getting ready for the cage

In all, there were 111 eggs.  We took one for the DNA sample, but later found one broken one near the bottom of the nest, so we kept that one as a duplicate sample.  The other 109 eggs were reburied and protected.

Chelsey, Chris, Tom, Steve D, Jackie and Steve D in front of our relocated Nest #3.