Monday, August 19th - Inventories of 2 Wild Nests

As stated in the previous post, a busy morning on Waties today.  The Monday Walkers split in two teams, one team did the inventory for Nest #8 located on the lower end (previous post), and the rest of the team headed up to the far eastern end of the island, close to the jetty.  On Sunday, two wild nests were reported, so we were going to dig up the area to determine if we did have wild nests.  We sure did, both areas were confirmed as wild nests - Nest #26, and Nest #27. 

Nest #26 is located 50 yards before Nest #19.  The counts for this nest is as follows - 106 eggs hatched, 8 unhatched, and sadly 3 dead hatchlings, no live hatchlings.  The stats on this nest is 92.9% hatched success, and 90.3%  emergence success.  We used one of the dead hatchlings for the DNA.

Kim  digging, Leslie sorting

Maddy and Donna joining the fun,
along with guest Taryn Williams

Nest #26 Inventory Results

We placed this piece of wood over the nest,
to help future walkers identify the area,
 just in case those pesky Ghost Crabs drag out shells

Kim, Maddy, Taryn and Donna

Nest #27 is located at Marker 9, above Nest #19, near  the area of  our first possible nest was located close to the top of the dunes.  The counts for this nest is as follows - 103 eggs hatched, 7 unhatched, and sadly 2 dead hatchlings, no live hatchlings.  The stats on this nest is 93.6% hatched success, and 91.8%  emergence success.  We used one of the dead hatchlings for the DNA. 

Nest #27 Inventory Results

Kim, Maddy, Donna, and guest Taryn

We placed another piece of wood and roots from a Green Brier
to help future walkers identify the nest area, 
Those pesky Ghost Crabs may dig up the shells

Again many thanks for the extra help today - Steve, Barb and Paulette.  Our guest, Taryn enjoyed the experience.  Pictures by Barb, Paulette, and Leslie