Thursday, August 15th Nest 9R Emerged, Day 58

 Another beautiful morning on Waties, cool morning, low humidity, light breeze.

Yeah, we had another nest emergence this morning, Nest 09R.  This nest was laid on June 18th, close to the jetty area of the beach and was relocated to a wider beach area.  She laid 140 eggs and is the mom-ma which is dragging a barnacle on her plastron.  Picture perfect emergence hole and lots of hatchling tracks.  We caged this nest again to protect the nest contents for inventory.

Lots of hatchling tracks, we found no stragglers.  We hoped they emerged at high tide and had an easy  trip to the ocean.

To ensure the integrity of the eggs in the egg chamber, we caged this nest area, so a predator does not dig into the egg chamber looking for a meal.

We had two other discoveries this morning - we discovered Raccoon tracks, (I believe) and we really do not need these destructive critters on our beach.  She/he was dragging something, it was tracked and they dragged this item a good long way.  They can wreck havoc on our nests.

 

The other item was how fast these pesky ghost crabs can get into our nests.  When we walked up the beach there was a small crab hole which was explored and covered up, our normal practice.  An hour later when we walked back and I drove my truck up to the nest to place a cage over Nest 08, a pesky crab had dug into the nest and there was an egg on top of the sand.  He was not in the hole by the reed, but in a smaller hole and she/he was discovered and he went running.  I wish I could report that he was caught, but he was quick and got away - the little bugger.

Nest 8 - early morning, small GC hole

About an hour later, bigger hole and an egg on top of the nest

Caged Nest

Text by Leslie pictures by Leslie 

Waties Island performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance with SC DNR, permit number MTP 500.