The Final Inventory of a Pretty Busy Season

We had a clue that this might be a busy nesting season for us (the number of nests seems to trend up in three year cycles) and it was just that: Our third busiest season since the program started in 2007.

Yesterday a small group inventoried Nest 20 which was one of those "up and over the top" nests where the mother turtle climbed up the dune face to the top, laid a nest and then fell or slid down the back side. She did finally make her was back to the ocean but it must have been a struggle. She laid that nest just behind our island Marker 8.

Hurricane Ian did a job on those dunes and you can see below that the pole that held the "8" is gone and the nest was only a few inches behind that island marker.

Cage bring removed

Getting ready to dig

Getting the eggshells to a place where they can be sorted

We never did observe this nest emerging (weather? wind??) so we didn't know what to expect. Turned out that only 10 eggs hatched and 74 were unhatched. No known reason; some nests just don't do as well as others.

Nest 20

The dunes have really taken a beating after the hurricane. Let's hope the winter will bring some of that sand back.

Since we were out there, we also gathered some things that had washed up. Barbie sure was having a bad hair day!

Bad bad hair!

But she cleaned up nicely :)

And last but not least, a lovely sight...

Sail boat in the waterway

Thanks to everyone who shared photos from the island yesterday!

Barb and Steve