It was a cool morning for an inventory. Most volunteers and CCU Students had sweatshirts and jackets to keep warm. The ocean was very calm, which made for some great photos! When we got out to the island, Bill, Lorna and Valerie walked to check on Nest #16, hoping for an emergence. They were pleasantly surprised to see hatchling tracks all over the beach coming from the nest! Luckily, the hatchlings got out when the tide was pretty high, giving them a short crawl to the water.
The rest of the volunteers and the Coastal Sea Turtle Club walked the rest of the way to Nest #19 for the inventory, checking all the other nests along the way. There were many students that had never participated in an inventory before, so we divided the roles and everyone got to learn something new.
The nest was 24 inches deep and the students did not have to dig for long before getting to the nest chamber. The nest results were 95 hatched, 21 Unhatched, 0 dead and 0 live; 81.1% hatching/emergence success. The nest was 55 days old. When the inventory was complete, students opened a few unhatched eggs to observe the development stages.
It was a beautiful walk back and we all took a look at Nest #16 Emergence before heading back to the shed.
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