The morning started with thunder and lightning, so our planned departure was held up by an hour, sorry no sunrise pictures. I did take pictures of Beach Morning Glories, or known also by "railroad vine". Per Google, this is a fast growing salt-tolerant creeping vine that blankets coastal sand dunes. It easily survives scorching heat, dry sandy soil, strong winds and salty ocean spray. Sounds like our summer.
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Beach Morning Glory |
We had the Wednesday Volunteers along with two family members, and I invited the LOA's who also brought along two family members, we had four guests with us. The Wednesday Volunteers walked up the beach checking nests and pulling a beach wagon with our supplies, since no one drove up the beach due to the high tide.
We had the Wednesday Volunteers along with two family members, and I invited the LOA's who also brought along two family members, we had four guests with us. The Wednesday Volunteers walked up the beach checking nests and pulling a beach wagon with our supplies, since no one drove up the beach due to the high tide.
The Wednesday team made it to Nest09R and waited for the LOA's and guests to arrive. We did dig out the cages on both nests to prepare for the inventories. To recap Nest 09R it was laid on Friday, July 3rd by our little 29 inch lady. The original nest was laid close to the jetty area, and was moved down the beach to a wider and safer area of the beach. She laid 102 Eggs, one sacrificed for DNA research. The Sunday volunteers reported the emergence on August 23rd and saw lots of hatchling tracks - great sign!
Digging Work started
The end results of this nest was 97 eggs Hatch, ZERO Unhatched. Which rated this nest with both a Hatch and Emergence Success of 95%. I believe this is the first time for me in ten years of doing this work, that all eggs in a nest hatched!! Awesome!!
Our group moved on toward Nest 05. This nest was laid on Wednesday, June 17th and was our first "in situ" nest - meaning we did not need to relocate the nest. This nest was laid by a 34 inch lady. Unfortunately, due to the high winds and some rain storms, we did not see any hatchling tracks. We did observe what looked to be an emergence hole, but no tracks. Following SCDNR Guidelines we had to wait to inventory this nest on Day 70. Starting on August 22nd the Ghost Crabs started grabbing eggshells which were found on top of the nest. The outcome of this nest was 56 Hatched, 12 Unhatched, giving this nest a Hatch and Emergence Success rating of 77.7%
Two of our guests were biologists, so they had inquiring minds and wanted to check out some of the unhatched eggs.
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| Nest was 19 inches deep |
Our next nest which could emerge any day is Nest 08 was laid on July 2nd. It is 55 days old today. We did see some Ghost Grab activity at this nest.
Narrative and pictures by Leslie
All sea turtle monitoring by the Waties Island Sea Turtle Monitoring Program is permitted and authorized by SCDNR under Permit MTP500.
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