Well, again I held out hoping for good news to report, but that is not the case. Its been two weeks since my last update. This has been a crazy frustrating year. First, we had to deal with COVID-19, and walking without our volunteers and students, (you are missed), than the arrival of Hurricane Isasias, which destroyed the island’s dunes, the loss of most of our nest poles to locate the nests, a fish kill, and this week a King Tide, and nests over-washed.
Since my last update, we had six nests left, we now have five. Unfortunately, Nest #11 was considered lost. We were able to know where this nest was located since the secondary pole was still in the dunes after Hurricane Isasias. We had placed a cage and decorated the cage to deter the digging by the coyotes, but we never saw any indication of hatching or emergence. The Tuesday Team, Barb and Steve dug this nest up on Day 70. This is Barb’s narrative about this nest. “Nest 11 was 70 days old and we removed the cage and excavated under the reed. Unfortunately, after much digging, no eggs were found. The sand was hard packed and had mineral layers evident. This nest when originally found was up on a small bluff; my guess is that the hurricane took out the bluff and likely the eggs too.” So, another nest lost.
The next action seen was on September 11th, on Nest #13. The Friday Team, Paulette and Leslie, Paulette's narrative "found a large Ghost Crab hole and shells about 15 feet directly east of the sign for nest #13. The hole was big and maybe another creature had dug too. There were no prints or marks. Leslie dug as deep as she could laying on her stomach and reaching deep into the sand. We did not find the egg chamber. In the loose sand we found 5 very white empty shells and 4 ugly unhatched eggs. A dead very premature hatchling was also found". This nest location was by searching via the GPS coordinates, so where we marked it with a pole, was pretty close to where we found the Ghost Crab hole. When we found these eggshells Nest #13 was 58 days old.
We have been learning a lot this year, since much we have had to deal with is not the norm. We continue to hold on to hope for our other nests.
Nest #11 - after extensive digging no eggs were found, comparing the location of previous pictures, it was determined that the dune, along with our nest were swept away by the hurricane.
Nest #13 - another nest "discovered" by a Ghost Grab or some other animal - no tracks
Pictures from Friday morning, after the King Tide, moved the wrack from the middle of the beach right up to the base of the dunes
 |
| Interesting find |
 |
| The new Swash |
 |
| Located above Marker 8 |
 |
| Steve walking up the beach |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.