Sunday, June 30 Nest #16

The day started with another beautiful view of the marsh.  It did not take long to become busy. 

There was a reported false crawl right under the 5 Marker.  It is our Special Needs Turtle.  She came up the beach and her tracks disappeared, until right at the base of the dunes faint tracks were seen.  She did dig or attempted to dig a body pit, but no nest chamber was found.

Our SNT crawl 

Where's the rest of her tracks?

As we finished up with this one, another call came and we had a nice crawl right to the left of Marker 8.  This was a classic crawl and nice body pit.  Leslie and Mario probed in the soft sand and were determined to find the nest chamber.  We believe this is the same lady who laid one of our PN Possible Nests.  Karen finally found the nest chamber, which was outside of the body pit.  She hid her eggs well.

Crawl for Nest #16 - Classic In and out

Egg Chamber

Nest 16 - our last June nest, now we shall see what July brings!

Nest #15 Today!

Always a rewarding morning when we find a crawl. For anyone who is keeping track of nest locations on the map, today's activity is only a few feet short of Marker 6 and only a few feet above our first nest of the season.

Justin did some probing and found a soft spot. It took some digging; the eggs were down about 16 to 18 inches. Nest #15 is official!

Justin probing

A pretty sight

Happy Saturday Walkers :)

We did have some other action at Marker 8 too but not exactly what we wanted to see: Looks like our handicapped turtle has come back to try once more to lay a nest. We're pretty sure she did lay Nest 11 about a week and a half ago and she's now attempting to lay another one. Hope she will be successful, but that was not the case this morning. Lots of spots were probed but nothing was found. Maybe tonight??

That's her track for sure

She tried in several spots but no nest this time.

Barb and Steve

Alligator Day (and Nest #14 too)

As we often say, "you never know what you're going to see (or find) out on the beach" and today it was a young alligator sauntering along around Marker 6. Very cool! Apparently alligators can tolerate salt water for short periods of time but they are primarily freshwater animals. This one was about 3 feet long.

Posing for us to take pictures

Very pretty colors

Then just a bit above Marker 8, the distinctive tracks of a mother loggerhead. Nice and easy; no trouble finding the nest. Good job Leslie, Bob and Steve.

Nest 14 near Marker 8

The egg chamber

It's been a busy season so far - we are tie for the season with our previous record year of 28 nests. Wonder if we will beat that number this year?

Barb and Steve

Monday, June 24 Nest #13

Another day on Waties Island, another nest today!  Started out nicely, sunny but no breeze, and as soon as we head the beach I heard "we have a nest"!  The nest was laid right by the the CCU beach access road.  It was a nice crawl, she crawled a long way to dig her nest.  A nice body pit, but shallow nest chamber.  Some early bird kayak paddlers came up the beach to see the tracks and we explained what we were doing and answered their questions.

Most nests are good, but a few still being attacked by Ghost Crabs.  The traps that have been set are working and two more were captured and released elsewhere today.

Egret guarding the caseway

Sun rise

Long crawl to and from nest site

Body Pit

Egg chamber, shallow

Egg for DNA Research

Monday Walkers - Sherry, Kim, Sandy, Arlene and Maddy, Leslie taking picture

Thursday, June 20th, Nest #12

We started our walk drinking in the beauty of Waties but quickly came upon our nest.  It is located between markers 4 and 5. The tracks were windswept and short due to tides.  We kept on walking to check other nests and try for two!
At nest #5 we again found a ghost crab hole right into the reed area.  Angelos located the GC trap under the sand and reset it. These GCs are very persistent!

Further down the beach at nest #11 we found two big GC holes by the nest.  Bill got a trap from behind nest #6 and Angelos installed that to the right of the holes.

After walking to the jetty we returned to probe our soon to be nest #12.  The turtle had come in and walked up the dune and build her pit/platform. Due to windblown sand the track was hard to measure or clearly make out.  It did not take much probing by Samantha to discover the nest. It is not buried deeply into the sand.  One egg was broken in probing but was used for DNA sample.

Angelos, Elaine and Samantha beginning the probe.

Thursday Team minus Roger, Bill and Flossie

Jane Ellen and Sam beginning the dig

Since it is Sam's last day so this was a bonanza.  She has a job in OK! 

Wonderful fun-filled learning day on Waties!

Wednesday, June 19 Nest #11

Another exciting day on Waties Island.  We replaced the reed missing on Nest #1, and a ghost crab came out from his hole to watch what we were doing.  Hoping he will not dig into the nest and make a raid on the eggs.

A ghost crab was captured at Nest #5, but we lost several eggs to them.  The ghost crab has actually dug right into the nest, right at the reed.  This hole was filled and covered, but they are persistent little buggers.

Nest #11 was discovered after M9.  There was a pile of sand, very close to the dune line and Leslie and Jewel went to investigate.  We found an exposed egg chamber, with a whole egg on top of the sand, and smaller pieces of egg shell around the nest area.  After discussions with more experienced persons, it was determined to leave the nest where it is.  The Wednesday Walkers, filled in the nest cavity, and covered the area with extra sand, hoping to give these eggs a chance to survive.  It was unclear if this was a new crawl, since we lacked clear tracks, or a nest from the false crawl reported on Tuesday.  Could it be our SNT turtle who may have actually nested?   The nest as you cans see from the picture below is very shallow.

Lots of soaring Pelicans today - always a spectacular sight.

Nosy Ghost Crab - stay away from our nests!

Ghost Crab hole right by the reed into our nest.

Surprise, surprise, an egg and
an egg chamber full of eggs

Very shallow nest, but we have eggs

What was left of our turtle tracks 

Did she come in last night? 

Taylor taking care of the exposed egg
we used for DNA sample

Nest #11

Wednesday Walkers 

Lots of Pelicans soaring today - always a spectacular sight.

Monday, June 17th, Nest #10

Another glorious morning on Waties Island, this view never gets old.  The Monday Walking team found a crawl located between Marker 4 and 5, close to the ATV entrance.   The body pit was well formed and if you look closely, you can see how she was situated with her front flippers resting in the sand.  The body pit had already been invaded by our pesky Ghost Crabs.

After determined probing in the soft sand, the egg chamber was found.  An egg was selected and sacrificed for the DNA study.  We had guests Joyce, Tracie, and Haley and included them in this exciting discovery.

Ghost Crab traps were placed by Nest #5.

We did have another false crawl by our SNT - Special Needs Turtle close to the jetty. She crawled along thedune and back along the same path, pretty much.  Similar mode as the one from Saturday (you can actually see the tracks of the Saturday one on the right in the whole crawl photo).

Nice neat crawl

No fooling around, she came in nested, and returned to the ocean

Body Pit - three Ghost Crab holes, look closely
you can see the outline of her front flippers in the sand

Eureka! Eggs!

Monday Walkers - Kim, Haley (guest), Arlene, Janice,
Tracey (guest), Joyce (Guest) and Leslie

Pictures of our Special Needs Turtle (SNT) she is really trying . . .