Since everyone is anxious on the effects the coming King Tide and storm surge and how it will effect our nests. Here's some pics from this morning. The six remaining nests are high and dry so far. Last night's evening tide did leach onto the Causeway in a few places. There is a lot of wrack on the beach this morning.
Sunrise over the marsh
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On July 6th we had morning storms so Bill and Leslie went out later and to their surprise found Nest #04, mid island.
Today this nest was 53 days old and we found an emergence. Pretty sure it is just a partial emergence because not many tracks and depression was not very deep.
Also lots of ghost crab tracks around but no signs of eggs or hatchlings as you can see in the following pictures.
What a stellar morning - cool 74 degrees, cloudy and a light breeze, hardly any bugs, just a few biting flies. The sun coming up was like a blazing ball of red, but hid behind clouds while we were on the beach.
We had a number of volunteers and guests who joined us for the inventory of Nest #3. We had several of the Saturday Volunteers with us, Nest #3 was a nest they discovered. This nest was laid on June 24th. She had crawled under a fallen tree that was laying on the beach and proceed to climb to the top of a small dune.
This nest emerged on Sunday, August 20th on day 57. The nest results are the following: 84 hatched, 40 unhatched, and 2 dead, 1 for DNA total of 125 eggs. Nest percentages are Hatch Success 67.2%, and Emergence Success 65.6%. There were some pipped eggs in the unhatched count. One of the two dead hatchlings still had its yolk sack on the bottom of its shell.
Many thanks to the volunteers and guests who helped with the nest inventory. Since the nest was on top of the dune, and there is limited space, we used a "brigade" scenario to get the eggs down for sorting and counting. It took a village to complete this task today.
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| Chris removes the protective cage |
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| Volunteers and Guests getting ready |
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| Mario, a Sunday volunteer who discovered the hatchling tracks | is ready to dig |
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| Our "brigade" on handing down the eggs to be sorted |
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| Waiting to hear results from the sorting |
I would like to express my thanks to all of the daily Volunteer groups who were diligent in watching over this nest; give yourself a pat on the back. All assisted in the remedial efforts we did to help with giving these eggs the best chance. Last year we had a number of nests on top of the dunes and with the hot summer and high winds we get on Waties Island, many of the eggs actually were "cooked". The wind had blown the sand off of the nests, so this year we checked on the level of the sand and surrounded the nest with drift wood to help catch the blowing sand, a great success and now we know how to handle these nests laid on top of the dunes successfully.
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| Sorting efforts |
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| Warning: Our two deceased hatchlings the one has its egg yolk sac still attached |
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| Volunteers and Guests |
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| Many thanks to Cherie's for her pics |
Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance under SCDNR Permit Number: MTP500
It was a quiet morning and was nice to have all of our Sunday Team present this morning. Allie and Erin walked the short end and checked out all nests along the way. Mario and Dani walked the long end taking extra note of any activity at the Jettys and Nest #3.
It was not long before Mario called Erin stating that Nest 3 emerged over night. It was a great demonstration of an emergence for Allie, who did not see the nest 10 emergence from last Sunday. It looks like many hatchlings made it to the water, as the tracks spread wide and far.
However, it looks like we were not the only ones to notice the emerged nest. There are canine and raccoon tracks very close to the nest cage and alongside some of the hatchling tracks but it does not look like they found any. It will definitely be an area to keep an eye on until the inventory in hopes that the predators do not find any hatchlings.
Narrative by Erin, photos by Erin and Mario.
Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance under SCDNR Permit Number: MTP500
Today, along with our normal patrol, we inventoried nest #10!
Erin and Mario removing excess sand and adding netting to nest #7
Now for the inventory! The nest was set to be inventoried last Wednesday, but when we started digging, we noticed that it wasn’t quite ready. If we see hatchlings as soon as we get to the nest (per DNR guidelines) we wait 3 more days, which landed on today!
A rare sight during the busy summer, all of our leads were present for the inventory it was very nice to see each other .
Bob and Jackie started digging into the nest.
Volunteers and guests hit the beach this morning energized and excited by the cooler, less humid conditions, and with the objective of completing the inventory of bonus/surprise nest #10.
Nest 10 was originally deemed false crawl #06 on June 12, after volunteers were unable to locate the nest chamber despite extensive probing and digging. Appears momma did her job in disguising the nest very well.
Walkers on August 13, found an emergence hole and lots of hatchling tracks coming from the area of a previously unmarked nest. Based on GPS recordings, timing, and comparing scene photos, false crawl #06 was declared nest # 10!
The inventory was scheduled for today- three days following the emergence. After walking to the end of the island up by the jetties and locating the emergence hole, we began to dig, easily following the soft sand.
We hadn’t dug for long when we came upon a live hatchling looking up at us in the sand, followed by another, then a few more. We didn’t come to an egg (unhatched) until several hatchlings had revealed themselves. So following DNR guidelines, sadly, we had to cover them back up and wait 3 more days to complete the inventory.
They looked healthy and ready to go, so it was hard to cover them back up. But they need their time in the nest to ready themselves for their next big adventure.
Photos by Barb and Leslie, text by Kim
Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance under SCDNR Permit Number MTP500
