A New Nest Today and Inventory of Nest 21

What a wonderful surprise the volunteers and guests got this morning! 

On our way up the beach to conduct the inventory of new Nest 21 and checking the other nests along the way, the volunteers saw a hatchling making its way toward the ocean! Looking around, they saw several more.

Up toward the dunes, we could see an emergence hole and lots of loggerhead hatchlings climbing out - not an easy job - but there is strength in numbers.

 This daytime emergence is a bit unusual; these events most often take place in the late evening or overnight. A very exciting event to witness.

When we compared the GPS readings from a false crawl documented in this area and compared photos taken of that false crawl #6 on June 12, we feel very confident that this nest was that false crawl, making Nest 22 for the season. A happy discovery this morning :)  The white pole in the photo marks the location of the emergence hole in case blowing sands cover it up.

 

 

 

 

After we watched the emergence of new Nest 22, we headed up the beach to do the inventory on Nest #21, previously Possible Nest #1, which was discovered on June 13th.  She left a mess and we thought she had headed into the dunes, but she was sitting on the beach watching us, before hurrying back to the ocean.  We were unable to find the nest chamber, so we marked it a "Possible Nest".  

We attempted to do the inventory last Wednesday, but found hatchlings before any eggshells, so we had to cover the nest back up and wait another three days.  Thankfully we did, this nest had great results.  We had 111 hatched eggs, only one unhatched egg which we used for the DNA sample.  This nest had a 98.2% for both the Hatch and Emergence Success rates.  Great results, she hid this nest well! 

Ladies digging away

Betsy - are we at the bottom yet?

Team Work

Inventory Results

Kaela found a praying mantis on the beach this morning. It was struggling to fly in the wind so she took it up to the dunes to recover.

A great morning!

Thank you Cherie for sharing your beautiful photos!

Telling today's story by Barb and Leslie

Wednesday 8/10/22 Inventory Nest 5R & Nest 21 (PN1)

 Headed out across the marsh this morning as the sun was coming up. View never gets old.

Very windy on the beach today!  Did keep the bugs, heat and humidity down though.

PN#1 now Nest# 21

Unfortunately, Nest #21/PN01 has to be rescheduled.  When Cherie, Jewel, and Lorna dug into the area, we ran into hatchlings - five, before egg shells, so per SCDNR guidelines we had to keep the hatchlings in the nest and rebury them.  

This nest is 55 days old today, so it will give these hatchlings some additional rest.  However, they were feisty little ones. 

NEST #5R emerged on Sunday 8/7/22 at 60 days.  It was laid below the high tide line and therefore had to be moved to higher ground.

Kim and Paulette digging up the nest.

  We relocated a total of 120 eggs.  

Inventory Results

Hatched: 91

Unhatched: 27

Live hatchlings: 0

Dead hatchlings: 0

Minus 1 egg taken for DNA Study

Minus 1 egg lost to Ghost Crab

Hatch Success: 75.8%

Emergence Success: 75.8%

Today's Green Team

From the top left: Leslie P., Cherie, Kim, Jewel, Leslie Y., Paulette

Me, Barb, Lorna

Steve took the picture!

My thanks to you all for helping today!

Sand Art

Headed Home

A good job done!!!

 

Photos: Leslie P., Leslie Y., Barb & Steve

Two emergences

Nest 5R which was  laid 6/8 has emerged.  Lots of tracks in picture below.  

Nest 5R had 120 eggs when relocated.

PN #1  which is marked this way because volunteers were unable to find a nest chamber around a feasible body pit.  So this area is marked with a pole and surveyed  daily just in case it is a nest.  We found lots of tracks going to the ocean and this now  has become our 21st nest of the season, Woohoo!!

Look closely for the tracks.

Nest 21 was laid on 6/13.  Emergence was actually at the crab hole above the pole.

Wednesday 8/3/22 Inventory of Nest 2R

Morning was warm, muggy and buggy. 

In 2011 this turtle laid NMB's 1st nest and Waties 1st nest and then 4 more on Waties

2013 - All 5 nests on Waties

2016 - All 6 nests on Waties

2018 - All 6 nests on Waties

2020 - All 4 nests on Waties

2022 - She laid our second nest of this year. #2R below

She crawled high up on the dune, came back below the high tide line and nested.

This nest has been plagued by Ghost Crabs.  It was originally a shallow nest, but due to lots of blowing sand, we had to do some digging to get to the egg shells.

Theresa and Jeannie opened up the nest under Sharon's supervision. While Leslie Y. stood ready to receive the contents of the nest.

Phyllis and Ayana sorted out the egg shells from pieces and put them in groups of 10.  Unhatched eggs are counted separate as are any dead and live hatchlings. 

Getting to the bottom of the nest to make sure there are no more egg shells left.

Finishing up the nest, we sorted thru the sand to make sure we got all the egg shells.

 Because this nest was relocated, we knew that this turtle had laid a total of 103 eggs.  When a nest is first found, always take one egg for the DNA study.  During the incubation period we also check and record any eggs lost due to predators. Sometimes we never see a lost egg shell because they have been carried off, buried in the blowing sand, etc.

Inventory Results:

- Hatched: 87

- Unhatched: 4

-Eggs lost before inventory: 1 due to DNA Study and 3 to Ghost Crabs. 

- 1 dead Hatchling

-0 Live Hatchlings

Hatch Success: 84.4%

Emergence Success: 83.4%

Thank You to everyone for taking the time to come out to help make this a good day.

 

Tuesday, August 2nd - Inventory of Nest #4 - the nest with a view

 The day started out with a stunning sun rise.  We split into two teams.  My team headed up the beach, we were to check on the nests from Marker 4 to the Jetty.  Kim and I took care of the nests which needed attention, such as Nest #14 which is being preyed on by Ghost Crabs.  We caught another one of those pesky GCs.  Jingle and Keela headed to the jetty, and when we saw them coming back we headed to Nest #4 to start the inventory - we waited for them. 

  

Kim is ready to go

 

 

 

 

Keela and Jiggle dug, Kim handed down the eggs, helped with the sorting along with Leslie.  The team who did the inventory on Nest #1, joined us to view our findings.

Keela and Jingle Digging, Kim is the Helper

The nest was very shallow

Leslie and Kim Sorting

The count of our nest inventory

Some of the eggs were brown, they looked burnt

Unhatched Egg - the brown spot is an embryo

Here's the outcome.  

Nest #4 - Was discovered on June 7, by the Tuesday volunteers.  This was one of our nests that was located on top of the dune at Marker 4.  This nest emerged on July 30th also, at day 53. This was a shallow nest.  The eggs on the top of this nest were discolored, they even looked burnt.  When we opened some of the unhatched eggs, the contents looked like scrambled eggs.  Many of the eggs at the top of this nest were discolored and a few had roots around the egg.  The other interesting thing about this nest, many of the unhatched eggs were filled with sand.  After closer inspection, we noted a small puncture hole where probably the contents had been sucked out probably by a Ghost Crab.  The outcome of this nest was 87 Hatched, 26 eggs unhatched, 5 dead hatchlings, and no live hatchlings.  The stats for this nest is 75.6% Hatch Success, 71.3% Emergence Success, and a total clutch count of 115 eggs.  Leslie managed this inventory.

Tuesday 8/2/22 Inventory on Nest #1

Nest #1 was a typical nest site laid on 5/25/22 above the high tide line between MM 3 & MM 4.  Crawl was 31" wide.  It emerged on 7/30/22 at 66 days.

Patty and Rachael starting to dig up nest.

We came across this lone hatchling after digging awhile. 

Placed it in the bucket and continued.

Had to dig another foot down to find any egg shells.

Found one very small spacer egg.

Pole showing depth of nest

Pole showing depth of nest.

One slightly formed egg.

Inventory results:  125 hatched; 10 unhatched; 0 dead hatchlings and 1 live hatchling.  One taken for the DNA sample at the time the nest was laid for a total of  136 eggs.

Hatch Success: 91.9%

Emergence Success: 91.1%

Hatchling making its way to the water.

This turtle has laid her nests primarily on Waties.  2013 (4),  2016 (4), 2018 (4) and 1 on Bay Point Island, and in 2020 (2).  Her nests were spread out across the island.

 

Monday, August 1st - the beauty and the wind on Waties Island

Can you believe it is August!  No exciting sea turtle news today.  Just sharing some pictures and the beauty of Waties Island, and the power of the wind.  It was a bad hair day and/or lose your hat kinda day on the island this morning.

Enjoy

 Note the designs that the vegetation makes in the sand

 

Wind has completely moved the sand off of the  side of our cage

Designs around the DNR post

Blowing sand

A canyon along a dune