Back in May, early in the season, Bill and Flossie found two nests in one day (they went on to find a record three in one day later in the season). Nest 3 was one of those nests - it was found on May 28 and was right next to the entrance the horses use to access the beach.
On August 1, just before the hurricane, we saw that this nest had emerged overnight with lots of hatchling tracks. An inventory was scheduled for three days later which turned out to be day after the hurricane hit. All signs led us to believe that the nest had possibly been washed away - the nest marker and reed were gone. BUT, this morning when reinstalling the distance markers, Steve saw a piece of eggshell on the surface approximately where the nest was! Sure enough with a little digging, we found the egg chamber and conducted the inventory.
The final count was 98 hatched, 17 unhatched, no live or dead hatchlings for an 80% hatch success ratio. Nice!
 |
| Lots of turtles made it out :) |
 |
| Right by the horse entrance - Mile marker 3 |
 |
| Returning the shells to the nest cavity Crabs will probably dig them us tonight :( |
The beach looks so different now after the storm. We are still seeing new items washing up every day. We have collected three NMB trash cans, a rental chair, several large planters and other miscelleous "stuff". Several docks and pieces thereof have also made their way to the island. I imagine more will surface in the coming days.
 |
| This end of the island is eroding quickly |
 |
| "Stuff" |
 |
| This one will be tough to move! |
Barb and Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.