Tuesday, September 26th - Inventory of Nest 9R - Our last nest of the season

 The day started out with sea fog on the beach.  Nice and cool, very light breeze, and no bugs on the beach.  For the inventory we had 15 CCU students who are members of the Sea Turtle Club, and a number of our LOAs and volunteers also attended.  Some of our volunteers did not make it, and sorry - we missed you. Jackie Boyce whose family donated the land to CCU also attended the inventory.   Luckily, we had three trucks to transport everyone out to the island.  Nest 9R was our last nest laid.  It was laid on July 29th, 2023 and due to its location which was close to the high tide line, it was moved to higher ground.  She laid 87 eggs, one was sacrificed for the DNA study, so we knew we had 86 eggs to uncover.  This nest emerged on September 23rd, on day 56.

Nest 9R

Two of our new volunteers

Instruction and Assignments given

 

 

 

 Steve checked the Hog Inlet area with his passengers and the rest of us walked up to the nest site.  Assignments were given and the digging process started.  Unfortunately, we were disappointed, this nest did not do well. The nest had 86 total eggs, 38 eggs hatched, 48 unhatched, 0 dead, 0 live hatchlings.    The unhatched eggs looked very similar to the ones we found for Nest 6R.  The unhatched eggs were either empty or not fertilized, and most had that ugly pinkish orange color denoting possible invasion of bacteria.  This nest had a 43.6% Hatched and Emergence Success.  One of the unhatched eggs had a spacer egg on it, and several eggs still had the tissue on them from her laying the eggs.

Kim supervising the digging

 

Passing of the shells

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Egg  with an attached spacer egg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inventory results

Our helpers for this nest, members of the CCU Sea Turtle Club

 The find of the day was made by Cherie - a large Horse Conch with the creature displaying its presence.  Lots of Moon jellies on the beach, saw just a few small Cannonball Jellies, and several of the large Lion's Mane jellies.

 

 

 

 

 

Sad to say that the 2023 Nesting season has come to an end.  Many, many thanks to our dedicated Leads and Volunteers.  I hope to see you all again next year.

Narrative by Leslie, Pictures by Leslie and Cherie

 Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance under SCDNR Permit Number: MTP500.

The Last One...

 On this cold, blustery and damp morning after Ophelia skirted us, the Saturday team headed out to check the last nest remaining on Waties. The beach was windswept and flat with the wind at our backs. 

Nest 9R was 56 days old today, and look what we saw!!

Looks like the hatchlings made their escape overnight

 

There were faint tracks heading toward the ocean. The storm overnight made them hard to see and harder yet to photograph. But we did see a straggler hatchling just making its journey toward the ocean.

Faint tracks

The lone straggler

The tide was very low and the distance this turtle had yet to cover was huge so we gave him a helping hand.

We got the turtle close to the water but once the water washed over it the first time, it was off and going. The water temperature was warmer than the air this morning. Bet it felt good to be in the water.

Miserable for us humans but pleasant for those turtles.

Mr (or Mrs?) fox heading to Tidewater today

Thanks for Cherie and Betsy for sharing their photos today.

Barb

Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance under SCDNR Permit Number: MTP500.

Inventory of Nest 8R

What a beautiful morning! The Tuesday volunteers were joined by several other Waties volunteers, a property owner, as well as 15 students from CCU. Today's inventory was about a mile up the beach from the entrance. The group enjoyed the cool walk up the beach.

The students are learning the history of this nest

Just starting the excavation

The "fire brigade" - moving eggshells to the sorting station

Two live little ones

On the way!

Thank you all!

The nest was a quite successful one: of the 119 eggs relocated, 114 hatched and only 5 were unhatched. That's what we like to see - 95% hatch success!

Our season is almost over now; only one nest remains.

Photos by Leslie and Barb

Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance under SCDNR Permit Number: MTP500.

Sunday September 17th- Inventory of Nest 6R

 The Sunday team started the morning early to stay cool during their walk and was welcomed by a beautiful sunrise, that never disappoints. 

Dani brought her daughter, Lucy, along this morning and she was very curious about everything she came across on the beach. She found a horseshoe crab molt and enjoyed looking at all of the nests. On the way back to nest 6 for the inventory, we found what we think is a Lions Mane Jellyfish on the edge of the water, starting to float back out to the ocean. 

When we got to the nest, Leslie had the students and volunteers ready to inventory the nest and everyone had their jobs. The Sunday team jumped in where they could. Mario, Lucy and some Coastal Sea Turtle Club members dug, while other members helped move sand and carry eggs, and Kim and Dani helped the last bit of members with sorting. 

CCU Sea Turtle Club eager to help whatever jobs they are given.

Leslie assigning jobs and handing out gloves to everyone that wants to help.

Mario, Lucy and CCU students starting to dig into the nest. 

Dani and CCU students patiently waiting for eggs to sort into the correct categories. 

The results of the inventory weren't as good as we hoped for but there was 1 live hatchling. The students and Lucy were very excited and eager to help its journey to the ocean. Volunteers never saw the textbook spread of hatchling tracks with this emergence, just a single track from a straggler, and a dead hatchling on the beach. The results were as follows: 75 Unhatched Eggs; 27 Hatched Eggs, 1 Live Hatchling. Hatch success: 25.4%; Emergence success: 24.5%. 

We draw circles around groups of 10 eggs to help count and organize the groups. 

The nest after the eggs were all removed, it was not a very wide hole. 

After we were finished counting eggs, we all walked the hatchling down towards the water and made sure it made it into the ocean safely. Lucy watched the hatchling until she could no longer see it. Overall, it was a great turnout of volunteers, students and guests.

Saying Goodbye and Good Luck to the single hatchling we found.

Photos taken by Erin & Leslie, Narrative by Erin. 

Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance under SCDNR Permit Number: MTP500.

Saturday, September 16h - Beach Sweep

 On Saturday, September 16th some members of WISTMP participated in the annual Ocean Conservancy Beach/River Sweep.  We concentrated our efforts at low tide along the Little River Jetty.  We covered the area from the jetty to the Dun Sound area of Waties Island. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The small ponds/lakes are back, at least you can see them now

Sea Oats looking toward Bird Island

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking across to the backside of Bird Island and the Little river Inlet

 

We picked up the "normal" trash items and a few irregular things such as a boat spot light (heavy), siding, and this large black item we had to compress to get it to fit in the bag.  We stopped at Nest #6R to check and see if we could see the hatchling track, and we were in luck.

 Truck load taken to the Recycle Center

Many thanks to Kim, Melissa, Valerie, Meg, Jo Anne and her husband Rick.

Pictures by Leslie and Melissa