Friday July 11, Nest # 06R

 Great news for our Friday volunteers. Our “ short end” momma from two weeks ago returned last night right on schedule. The crawl, at 33” and the distinctive center drag mark, measured and looked identical to the previous crawl and was in almost the same location. 

Incoming crawl

Outgoing crawl. Love the little zig-zag on her way back to the sea

The crawl was found relatively quickly by Linda and Suzanne as we started our patrol. Knowing we had a crawl in our back pocket, the survey of the remainder of the beach was completed, and we were anxious to get back to see if had a new nest. A big thanks to Jingle for making the trek up island and back in record time!  And for hauling needed supplies to the nest location. 

Our momma crawled a bit further up the beach this time and smack into one of the newly developing, highly vegetated, dunes forming on the short end. Because we saw how the high tide associated with TS Chantal affected that area last weekend, we knew this nest would be in peril if we had another such event. So we agreed, if a nest was found, it would be moved. 

Looking from the body pit area back to the ocean

This lady worked hard and dug up a lot of vegetation while digging her nest. We could vaguely see her outline within the body pit, but had to probe and dig quite a bit to find the nest. Our probe kept dropping into soft sand where the roots of the sea oats were uprooted, giving us lots of false “drops.” Finally our stalwart veteran Linda and new this year walkers Caroline, Cherie and Suzanne located the chamber. 

The nest was 18” deep. 106 eggs were laid. One of three broken eggs found at the bottom of the nest was used as the DNA sample. Because of these developing dunes and vegetation springing up on the beach, and the potential for another overwash, a new nest was dug further up the beach. 103 eggs were relocated to their new home, and 6 happy Friday volunteers, hot and covered in sand, headed home. 

Finally found those elusive eggs!

Caroline collects the egg shell for DNA analysis 

Carefully transferring eggs to their new home

Suzanne and Caroline handling precious cargo

Pics by Caroline, Jingle and Kim T. Text by Kim T.

All sea turtle monitoring by the Waties Island Sea Turtle Patrol is permitted and authorized by SCDNR Marine Turtle Conservation Program under Permit MTP500