Thursday, July 19th activity

Let's start with some pretty Waties pictures taken by Bill Chapman.

then a not nice one....

The good news is Nest #1 emerged.

The baby turtle tracks looked more like trails than tracks due to the rain.

When we got to nests 6 & 7 we emptied the crab traps and replaced them.  They all had a crab.

Nest #4 had a large ghost crab hole in front of the reed.  We found as many pieces of egg and one whole egg as we could. We estimated four eggs lost. Crabs were in both traps which were emptied and replaced. 

Found false crawl #11 by marker 8. A quick in and out by mama turtle after the rain.

The tracks for our next crawl were nearly obliterated by the rain. We found one very shriveled egg by where we thought the pit might be.

We could see where she dragged herself up into the dunes. We probed that area and others that looked like maybes.

We called Steve--to the rescue! When he came out he could not find the nest either and declared it FC#12!  He did not think that the shriveled egg came from that nest. 

While we waited for Steve we picked up 30+ pairs of sunglasses in two large seaweed/grass clumps down by the ocean.  Lots of trash floating there.

When we finally came off the island we saw these morning glories.  Look for them.  At 9 AM they were in full bloom in the sun and loaded with butterflies!  As you approach the first gate they are to the right!  

Bill's favorite!

PS As I edited this I noticed I spelled crab crap a number of times.  I think it was subliminal.  I know, I know...the circle of life! Ugh!  Stop eating the baby turtles!