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.
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| Nosy Ghost Crab - stay away from our nests! |
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| Ghost Crab hole right by the reed into our nest. |
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Surprise, surprise, an egg and
an egg chamber full of eggs |
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| Very shallow nest, but we have eggs |
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| What was left of our turtle tracks |
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| Did she come in last night? |
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Taylor taking care of the exposed egg
we used for DNA sample |
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| Nest #11 |
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| Wednesday Walkers |
Lots of Pelicans soaring today - always a spectacular sight.
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