Another adventurous crew of Volunteers made it out to the island to perform the inventory of Nest 04R. We did not go out until after the late morning high tide. We wanted to see how far up the beach the tidal surge came up, thankfully most of our nests are still high and dry. Our volunteers tolerated blowing sands and we were watching the skies, thankfully we did not get rained on while on the beach.
Kathy and Pam started the digging, but soon ran out of soft sand and the hole looked like we were digging to China. I started digging toward the dunes and still no eggs. Kim then took over and finally we found eggs. This nest had two reeds - and the reeds were nowhere close to where we found the nest chamber. I have no clue on why, they may have been moved, possibly knocked over by the wind. Thank goodness we were determined to find those eggs.
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| Diggers - Kathy and Pam, Kim supervising |
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| Digging away |
The nest inventory went well after we found the eggs. This nest was laid on June 12th, 117 eggs relocated, Emerged on August 5th on Day 54. The inventory results, 98 hatched, 12 Unhatched, zero dead hatchlings and we were blessed to find 4 hatchlings. One of the hatchlings had a bum flipper but after we got him in the water he did better than crawling on land. Unsure if he is going to make it far. The results are a Hatched Success of 83.7% and Emergence Success of 80.3%. We did the counting back at the shed. I was not going to chase eggshells again.
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| Four Hatchlings |
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| Pam gets to hold a hatchling |
After digging we released the four hatchlings into the ocean. Safe travels little ones.
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| You can see its tracks |
We finished up the inventory back at the shed, so we did not have to case eggshells in the wind.
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| Egg count on the tailgate |
Text by Leslie Pictures by Leslie
Waties Island Performs research and management activities regarding sea turtle conservation in accordance with SCDNR permit number MTP500.
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