Monday, August 24

 It was pouring when we arrived at the shed so we waited a few minutes until it tapered off.  The mosquitoes were horrendous. It was hot with NO wind so we were a free meal.  As we came over the hills onto the beach we looked to the left and there were eggs scattered everywhere.  A critter had dug up the nest.  We believe it is next #12 but we will see if GPS readings support that.

Nest #5 still presented more shells on the surface.  

We inventoried #20 first.  There were two eggshells on the surface.  14 hatched eggs were at the top of the nest and one pipped egg.  The rest were wedged in tightly in very heavy sand. They were not easy to remove.We used the two that exploded as I tried to get them out for DNA samples.  In total there were 104 unhatched eggs.  Sad. We put all eggs and shells in a bucket to be moved to short end.

It was beginning to blow and rain slightly so we hurried back to #12.  As we worked to gather and count the eggs it was windy and raining.  We put the eggshells in groups of 10 in small gullies.  There were 72 unhatched eggshells.  Many were yellow with the yolk and there was some yolk remaining on the sand.  The sand was thrown back of where the animal was digging so we are assuming it was a coyote.  There were not tracks due to the rain. In the bottom of the hole there were smaller holes where the ghost crabs had dug down further. 

We then buried all the eggs and eggshells at the short end.

Flossie and Bill Chapman

Sunday August 23 Nest 10 is still there!!

 Today we discovered that Nest # 10, laid on Friday, July 3, is still on the beach!! The storm didn't wash it away. Now we will watch and see if it is viable and maybe will emerge in about 10 days!!

The ghost crabs are our enemy but this year we need them to help us find our nests. Nest 10 had the secondary marker still in place after the storm, so we were able to measure and mark where the nest

should be. Today a bright white eggshell was found at a crab hole near the nest site. So, we have hope.!! Please look back to July 3 on this blog for pictures before the storm to compare to today. Our island took a bad hit in some of the places where the dunes were the best for nest laying.

Paulette

Saturday, August 22nd - Inventory of Nest #5

 Today, Barb and Steve did the inventory on our Nest #5.  This nest was laid on June 13, and was located at Marker 6.  Her track width 33-34 inches.  She was one of our "rambling" turtles, she crawled up the face of the dune, looped around and went down the beach about 20 feet, and laid her nest on the flat part of the beach.  This nest was one of three of our nests that were vulnerable with the coming of Hurricane Isaias due to their location on the beach. 

Unfortunately, we have a canine friend, coyote?, who enjoys digging up our nests.  This nest was declared emerged on 8/19/2020 when hatched eggshells were found on the beach.  Matching GPS, it was determined to be our nest #5.  After we found the hatched eggshells, this canine has been making a royal mess of the nest, digging it up nightly, and we have been finding eggshells all over the beach.  We found 29 hatched eggshells on Friday, and one unhatched egg.

Barbs words from this morning "Bad, bad, bad! There were 11 hatched eggshells on the surface where he/she dug them out, along with smaller pieces. We dug into the cavity down to almost 2 feet but found no additional eggshells. Sand was hard packed. We did find one dead hatchling down there in what appeared to be a ghost crab tunnel. You can see the hole in the top view of the dug up nest. I'm not exactly sure we were digging in the right spot, so we left the nest marker in place. Maybe we will get some more activity there". 

This really messes up with our percentage rates, but we are following DNR guidelines - 23.9% Hatched Success and 21.9% Emergence Success.  I believe I will be calling DNR tomorrow to confirm

This is how we have found this nest in the last few days, before the inventory.  We have been picking up hatched eggshells, and little bits of shells for the last several days.  Its a nest that keeps on giving, and not in a good way.

 

Friday, August 21, 2020 - Yippee, can you believe it - Nest #20

 Hi All - the morning started with a spectacular sunrise.  It was quiet and serene.

Paulette walking into the sunrise

If you look closely, you will see a "fire rainbow" in the clouds

We found another hole dug by our canine friend, thank goodness it was not one of our nests today.   However, we may need to take steps to protect our nests in the future.

Yes, excited again, our PN (Possible Nest #2) graduated to a nest status today.  The Friday team, Paulette and Leslie, found hatched eggshells on the beach.  We determined the nest emerged.  This nest was laid on 6/25/2020 and is 57 days old today, and is very close to Marker 6.  Several people probed this area, and we were unable to find the nest chamber, she covered and hid it well.   This is giving us lots of hope that our other nests are good, and have made it through the hurricane and storm surge.  We do have to thank the Ghost Crabs, since none of our poles made it through the storm.   They have been giving us "clues" on where these nests are located.  In this case, there were three ghost crab holes.

As you can see, we had three ghost crab holes to chose from - eenie, meeny, miny, moe!

These are the eggs that caught our attention - 3 are hatched eggs

Since we did not have poles with us, we improvised for today, the Saturday team will mark correctly.

We need to walk back . . .  fortunately, we just had some sprinkles - but hot walking with rain gear on.  As you can see, lots of wrack on the beach.

Nest #5 emergence

 Scary start to morning, thunder  and lighting   far off shore  all up and down the beach. 

As we were walking up the beach we found nests 11 & 18 had been wash over, but are fine.  Next we find Nest #6 has more ghost crab activity. 

When we got to  M 7, Nest #19 (emerged yesterday) we found more egg  shells. 

 

This nest had 70 hatched eggs and 6 for DNA testing.

On our walk back Leslie came upon 3 egg shells and sure enough at big crab hole we checked GPS - right on the mark for Nest #5.  We put poles up to mark this emergence.  YEAH!!

Three poles

 Up to this point we were not paying much attention to sky.  When we got to entrance we took pictures of one of the most beautiful shelf clouds ever. 

This was headed for NMB, looked like the end of the world!  We made it back before the rain started.

Great morning!

Sharon & Leslie

A Surprise - Nest 19!

 Tuesday was an exciting morning - while we know the nesting season is over for this year, we came upon the remnants of a nest that an animal had dug up, most like a coyote. We have been seeing coyote tracks on the beach all summer along with some bobcat prints as well.

The find was at Marker 7, the same location as a false crawl back on June 4. Looking back at those pictures, the nest today seems to match that location. There were lots of hatched egg shells scattered around the hole and lots of smaller pieces as well. It is very nice to know that even though we weren't watching this spot, it hatched anyway, even after the hurricane made so many changes to the shoreline.

Hatched egg shells all over the place; even up in the dunes

In the wrack line too

That's sure not a ghost crab hole!

The tides were pretty high last evening (and will be higher tonight) bringing up lots of branches, dead trees and other flotsam.

A moon jellyfish - haven't seen many of these this season

Barb and Steve

Beautiful Birds this Sunday morning

 Cloudy, muggy morning on this 16th day of August.  On our way back to shed we were able to capture these  pictures.

 Thought we would share the beauty.

Paulette & Sharon

Sunday, August 9 - Good News and Sad News

Good morning Waties Island

 Today the Sunday team walked the island to determine if the few secondary piles in the dunes could be used to mark our best sites.  We were successful in marking Nests #6, #7 and #11.  White poles we put in place with nest number and date.  Hopefully, the nests are still there under the sand.  These posts will be our guides to check this area as the date draws close for emergence.

Sharon by Nest #6

We started digging where we think Next #4 is located.  This nest emerged before the storm, we are hoping to find eggs, so we can do the inventory.

Unfortunately, we found Nest #8 dug up by a predator, not sure if a Coyote, Bobcat, or Fox, but the Ghost Crabs took advantage of the exposed nest.  We dug the few eggs out of the dunes and did a count, we lost 72 eggs.  My first time to record a nest list to predators.

Tracks of whom we think dug up our nest

We lost the entire Nest - 72 Eggs

Sharon finally walked the long end.  You have to jump or walk through the new channel to do this.  She reported additional erosion and placed the ocean pushed through the dunes.

Sharon's pictures of the long end of the island, same devastation, dune break-throughs and dunes sheared.

Leslie, Paulette and Sharon

Pictures by Leslie & Sharon