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