Thursday, May 6th - Exciting morning on Waties - Nest #1 and possible seal sighting

The Thursday Team (Bill and Leslie) had an exciting morning.  The beach was very quiet, no wind like yesterday, and the ocean was flat.  Bill took the short end, and I headed toward the Jetty.

Right after M6, I spotted the crawl, and we have nest #1. She crawled in during high tide, she started her nest pit right at the base of the dune, changed her mind, crawled a little, did a loop-d-loop, and finally nested.  Classic nesting signs, thrown sand, disturbed wrack, and the crescent shaped sand.  Bill probed and found the nest chamber, it was a little on the shallow side 13 inches deep.  Her crawl was 34 inches wide.  Barb D has stated this is the earliest nest ever on Waties.

After calling Bill about the crawl, I continued up to the jetty.  In the distance I could see this shape and at first I thought it was an injured Pelican, but the closer I got it looked like it was moving like a seal, and it was scrambling to get to the water, and entered the water.  I was still too far away to get a picture, but after it entered the water I could see this head pop up from the ocean.  I took pictures of its crawl, and a measurement. I have forward pictures to SCDNR to see if they can confirm.

Lovely morning

    

We have a crawl - first of the year
She came in high tide, tracks on the left,
left after high tide - tracks to the right

She started to nest at the base of the dune,
changed her mind

Crawled away and did a loop-d-loop

She decided she liked this spot better

Headed back to the ocean

Classic Nest - disturbed wrack,
thrown sand,
and crescent shaped sand mound

Getting ready to work the nest

Egg in the nest chamber

Sea Turtle Egg, and DNA Vial 

Nest #1

The other exciting news was spotting a possible seal on the island.  These are pictures of the tracks left, from claw to craw, it's 10 inches wide.  We could see that it came in at high tide, rest on the sand, and the tracks going back to the ocean.

Pictures by Bill and Leslie