Last Day in June

And no new turtle tracks this morning. Just 12 days ago, we had three!! nests in one morning and this is just about the time for one or more of those mamas to make a return visit to the island. Maybe tomorrow??

We found this crab (pretty sure it is a long nosed spider crab) washed up on the beach. It had so much encrustation it couldn't walk. After chipping some of it off we put it back in the shallow water. Hope it will recover.

Spider Crab with lots of hard crusted sand

He might not be happy but at least he can move now

Our problem nest again had some ghost crab activity. Three of those pesky critters were in the traps. We relocated them far down the beach. Don't think they got any eggs overnight which is good!

Nest #7

Three lively unhappy crabs

Bill found a Masters hat yesterday; we found a Nike one but it must have been in the ocean a long time!

Driveway over the dunes has been graded

Birds waiting for the tide to go out a bit more so they can have breakfast.

Barb and Steve

Monday June 29, 2020

We had no crawls today.  Nest #7 did have a large hole at the reed but no crabs in the trap. 

Did find remnants of a shell.  That makes 2 lost to those pesky crabs!

Bill filled in the hole, raised the level of the sand on the first trap and set another trap. On the return trip we found another yet another Ghost Crab hole and filled it in.

As good as these finds were today, Bill found an even better one. See below!

Looks like somebody tried to dig out the sailboat w/some sticks! (Good luck w/that one!!)

Lots of Morning Glories growing along the causeway this morning.

Bill's great find!!  A Master's Hat!!!

Thursday, June 25th Possible Nest #2

Today started out overcast, thank goodness no sun, it was humid.  We are having a Ghost Crab issue at Nest #7.  Wednesday team did place a crab trap at Nest #7, and a Ghost Crab was trapped today, hoping it is the crab who dug the hole close to our nest.

Walking a little past Marker 6 we have a crawl.  She crawled to top of the dune, turned around at the base of the dune, found body pit and lots of thrown sand.  She made a mess of the area.  Lots of probing done, but no luck in finding the egg chamber.  This area was marked as a PN, "Possible Nest" Crawl width is 33 inches, so is she a new nesting momma?

Lots of probing, but no luck in finding the egg chamber - she sure made a mess of the area!

Pictures by Bill C and Val W

Wednesday, June 24th

Lovely site in marsh today at low tide. Several egrets along with a wood stock.

No crawls, sand on beach very wind blown, hardly  any trash. We did have to place a crab catcher at nest 7 due to a large crab hole.  Quiet morning.

Sharon & Leslie

First Monday of Summer, June 22

No turtle action today.  A beautiful sunrise, nice breeze, humid, but no bugs made for a great walk.

What are these tracks in the sand??  Those of us who walk the beaches, know that balloons do not go to heaven.

Above Pics - Ghost Crab dragged this one and than tried to make a meal of it.  

Below the wind pushing a balloon made these tracks.

Location of Nests 6, 7, and 8

Yesterday's newly discovered nests:

Nest 6 is between m5 and 6

 Nest 7 is just below m.4

Nest 8 is between m 3 and 4

Epic morning!

Another one of those days that somehow we knew we were finding something. Never did we think we would find four crawls...three of which would be nests! It was a long morning but wonderful.  It was cool, sunny and fruitful.

We found our first crawl between MM 1 & 2. There were very distinct tracks in the wet sand and then they kind of  levitated on dry sand! (Almost disappeared) Was it that windy last night?
She went all the way to the dune, turned around, started back and left a body pit midway back to the ocean. We probed for over an hour! We were disappointed to label it a false crawl.

We left the lower end and went up to the upper end of the island and hit the jackpot! Three more crawls.  Bill kept saying should we call in the calvary?  We had probed so long at the false crawl that he figured it could be hours.  I was praying we would find something quickly.

Bill called number 6 and 7 nests textbook.  We probed but not very long at all.

Nest #6

Next #7

And then there was number 8!  The both of us, of course, thought this would be the long probe again because it would be a false crawl.  We followed the meandering tracks up the beach.  Bill's quote was, "These remind me of Little Billy's tracks in the Family Circus cartoon...little dots going everywhere!" We wished we has been able to get drone footage. When we arrived at it the body pit was well-defined.  And with less than 10 probes Bill found the cavity.  Hallelujah! I could not believe it. 

Nest #8

Great day and an adventure with triplets!!

Flossie and Bill