Wednesday, July 31st Inventory of Nest 02

Today the Wednesday Volunteers with some help from LOAs Sharon Turek and Kim Toney, along with Volunteer Cherie Barrett got to complete the inventory of Nest 02.  This nest was found by the Wednesday Volunteers, so they have completed the entire journey with Nest 02.

Nest 02 was laid on May 29th, as was Nest 03R - it was Wednesday's two-for day.  The lady who laid Nest 02 was 34 inches wide.  It was a classic crawl straight up to the base of the dune, excellent place for a nest.  This is a natural nest, it did not need to be relocated.  Her nest was not very deep when we found the egg chamber, only 8 to 10 inches deep.  She is the lady who has a barnacle or something on her plastron (belly) that we could see dragging in her crawl.

Nest 02 - laid 5/29/2024

As assignments were given, Sharon and Kate started the digging process.  This nest had about two feet of sand on top of the nest.  We know this, since we mark on the DNR pole with colored tape the level of the sand when the nest is laid.  Normally digging into sand is not a big deal, but with the high winds and pounding rain the island has experienced this summer the sand is like concrete.  We eventually had to use a shovel to break the sand up for our "diggers".  The sand was so hard Kate had to change gloves since some of her fingers busted through the gloves.  As they were digging in the soft sand, a dead hatchling was found - poor thing.

 

Sharon, Kathy and Kim loosening the sand to get the nest cage free out of the sand, and off of the nest so the digging can begin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The helpers were assisting the diggers and eggs started coming out of the nest chamber to be sorted.  The next process is sorting the eggs in the following categories - hatched, unhatched, hatchlings - dead or alive.  Unfortunately we did not find any live hatchlings.

Sharon measuring the depth of the nest with the reed - these eggs were a good 24 inches deep

Diggers, helpers, sorters to the right

Sorters shaking sand out of the eggs, and categorizing the eggs

 

 

 

Deep nest, it is so amazing that these little hatchlings can crawl up through that sand - amazing

The outcome of this nest was great!  This nest emerged on July 28th, on day 60, here's the egg count - 94 Hatched, 4 unhatched, and one dead hatchling - summary totals for this nest is 94.9% Hatched Egg Success, 93.9% Emergence Success.  She laid a total of 98 eggs.

Text and pictures by Leslie

Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance with SCDNR Permit Number MTP500.