Waties Island Nest Count

Saturday, August 31, 2019

Saturday Inventory of Nest 16

Very high tides last night; the waves reached the base of the dunes in several spots. One nest at the jetty, #22, did get washed over but it shouldn't cause any harm.


 Again, a beautiful sunrise! The volunteers were joined today by a large group from the Coastal Sea Turtle Club.


Lots of help today
The lower end of the beach was showing some erosion from the King tides recently. And a floating dock seems to have landed on the beach down there too.  Thanks Pat and Jeanne for sharing your pictures today.





On to Nest #16: a large nest where we found 129 hatched egg shells, only 11 unhatched eggs and no dead hatchlings (a nice thing). We did find 6 live stragglers too. Including the DNA sample, we have a 91% hatch success ratio.


Starting the excavation

Two of the live ones


Off they go!



Thanks Cherie for sharing your photos too!

Seven more nests remaining on the island; hoping Hurricane Dorian will spare them.

Barb and Steve

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Thursday's walk and #15 inventory

The island was beautiful this morning.  Nice breeze, calm ocean, sand that had been swept clean by the high tide and the sun put on quite a show!



A walk of the island revealed evidence of a king tide (with a higher tide tomorrow).  No nests were overwashed but it was close.


One straggler seemed to make it out of Nest #16.  This nest will be inventoried on Saturday.

Thirteen CCU Sea Turtle Club members joined us for the actual inventory of nest #15.  For many it was their first visit to Waties.


This nest was laid on June 29th and it emerged at 58 days.  There were 86 hatched eggs shells, 10 that were unhatched and no dead or live hatchlings.  Including the DNA sample, a total of 97 eggs were laid by this mother.  The hatch success rate was 89% which is above average.


It truly was a glorious day! 






Wednesday, August 28, 2019

INVENTORY OF NEST #17

The mosquitoes were terrible this morning.  We wasted no time in getting out to the island.





A whole flock of birds heading West as the sun came up in the East



The Coastal Carolina University Turtle Club joined us this morning for the inventory


As well as our Wednesday Walkers



While some stopped to do the inventory, others continued up to check the nests and found that Nest #16 had emerged.


Nest #17 was laid by our mother turtle missing part of her right back flipper.

In the nest we found: 107 hatched egg shells, 32 unhatched eggs and 2 dead hatchlings. 
What will be included in this total are the 3 eggs shells found before the inventory and the one egg taken for the DNA sample for a total of 143 eggs.

Because the crabs have been digging up the eggs from our inventory, we buried them behind the dune.  Now there will be no confusion as to where they came from.

Thank you to all those who turned out this morning.

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Tuesday Morning Inventory of Nest 14

This week is a busy one for inventories: one today, one tomorrow and another one on Thursday morning. Even so, there are still eight more to go.

Cloudy morning over the marsh

Today we dug up Nest 14 which was laid back on June 25. It emerged at 60 days.


Day 60 Emergence

An easy dig; the sand was soft straight down to the nest chamber. Total hatched eggs was 62, 39 were unhatched and we found no live or dead hatchlings in the nest. The success ratio was a little lower than average at 60%.


Leslie and Sarah doing the excavating



Sorting and counting

62 hatched; 39 unhatched
  
Fun morning!
More fun to come tomorrow!

Barb and Steve

Monday, August 26, 2019

Monday, August 26 - Nest #15 Emerges

Another cool, crisp morning on Waties Island this morning.  We had another emergence this week.  Nest #15 was discovered on Saturday, June 29th, located below Marker 6.  It emerged on day 58.

The emergence hole was very visible, unfortunately due to the wind, you had to look very hard for hatchling tracks.  The information for this inventory will be sent out.

Due to this cold front,  the wind has shifted and is coming in from the East, North, East and has caused some interesting drifting sand sights on the dunes and beach.


A view you never get tired of looking at
Walkway to peace, Thanks Maddy

Nest #15 Emergence Hole

Classic Emergence Hole,
was visited by Ghost Crabs - see their tracks

Faint shadows of hatchling tracks

Interesting how the wind built a pedestal for this drift wood

Marker 8 - close to being buried
Blown sand off of the dunes

Taking a break, reflections in the water

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Sunday August 25 Nest #17 Emerges

A beautiful and cool morning on Waties!! We found that Nest # 17 had emerged overnight!! This nest was laid by our Special Needs Turtle on Tuesday, July 2 between markers 7 and 8. After 54 days of incubation, the hatchlings ran for the ocean. We also had the great pleasure to find a live hatchling near the nest crawling from a ghost crab hole very close to the emergence hole. We escorted this little guy down to the water and he energetically swam away. A perfect day!! Inventory will be on Wednesday morning.
Pictures by Leslie
Post by Paulette
The temperatures have dropped. The walk
is beautiful

This is a classic emergence hole with the
pesky ghost crabs adding their holes.

Can you see the trails left by the hatchlings heading to
the sea? 

In spite of the heavy rains last night we can see where these
hatchlings found the sea!

This little guy was happy to have friends helping him
make the dangerous trip to the ocean!

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Nest 14 Emerged Overnight

Another beautiful morning walk of Waties!

Just above Marker 8 at Nest #14 we got to see lots of hatchling tracks and a large emergence hole.  The tracks were pretty long too; you could see them almost down to the water line. There were ghost crabs tracks there too, but there is safety in numbers. Hope most of them made it to the water.

Nest 14


They're on their way!

That old metal tank near Marker 8 has anemones in it. They are small, only about as big as a 50 cent piece and some are even smaller.

Sea Anemones

A very nice improvement has taken place: the grass and brush on the sides of the road have been trimmed! Still some good sized pot holes in the roadbed but maybe that will be taken care of too. Hope so.

AND we have a new map (thank you Angelos and Paulette) which shows the locations of the remaining nests on Waties. Good to take a picture with your phone to help you check the nests on your morning walks.