UP DATE ON NESTS

Due to a third day of early morning thunder storms, Leslie and I went out to check the nests mid-morning of the third day. It had been two days since we were able to check them.       

The PN #1, now nest #13. is 54 days old. It had a large crab hole in front of the sign.  We found two egg shells on the surface.  One crab in the trap.  We filled in the hole and buried the egg shells. Released the crab away from the nest. 

But it was nest 4 that really surprised us.  The sign was down and there were numerous crab holes.

 Not sure how the sign was knocked down.

We found egg shells all around the area.

Some animal prints seen in the lower left and egg shells seen in the dune, upper right.

Leslie shows how far away from the nest that we were finding egg shells.

 In the area beyond where Leslie is shown in the picture above, we found this crab hole that may have been dug up by the animal whose prints we saw.  If you compare the nest opening with this hole, They are not the same and it does not look like the nest was opened up by the animal.

A different view of the same hole above that shows Leslie's feet.

Close up of Nest #4 showing an egg shell and an egg.

Egg shells we found by scouting the area.

We covered the crab holes and the nest and put the reed and sign back up and emptied the sand from the traps and put the egg shells in the trash bag.