Wednesday, May 21st - Waties Island has it's first nest!

 So happy to report that the big mom-ma Loggerhead Sea Turtle who visited Waties Island yesterday returned last night, or early this morning and laid a nest!  She came in right about mid-island.  She left us a classic crawl, big body pit and her crawl width is 36 inches wide.  She hid her egg chamber well, with persistence we did find the egg chamber.  The egg chamber was about eight inches deep. An egg was sacrificed for the DNA study.

Incoming track 

           You can see that she is dragging something

    probably a barnacle that is located on her plastron.

She did not mess around, did not wander around, she got  to the task that need done.

She selected a good place for her nest.  Big body pit, lots of thrown sand.

 Nest - looking toward the ocean

 

 

 

 

We had very experienced Volunteers today - we have Nest #01 under our belts now!

All sea turtle monitoring by Waties Island Sea Turtle Patrol is permitted and authorized by the SCDNR Marine Turtle Conservation Program under Marin Turtle Permit MT500.

Pictures and text by Leslie P