Turtle News
We will inventory Nests 8 and 4 on Friday, July 14th at 4 PM. Nest 8 was found by Judy Benko and Karen Sewell on May 14th. It is located 2 houses down beach from the yellow house just south of boardwalk 6. Nest 4 was found by Melanie Jerome, Ruth Henderer and Kathy Francis on May 12th. It is located midway between boardwalk 1 and the 1st dog sign We will begin at Nest 8.
Hope to see you there
Deb Wein and Norm Powers made the morning's first call with a crawl between Boardwalk 2 and 3 near the buried tree. The Middletons responded and Bill found nest 64. The 85 eggs were moved north of Boardwalk 6 about 100 yards north of the house under construction.
We had definite boils on Nests 2 and 5. Lots of baby tracks coming out. There were also more tracks from Nest 4 plus tracks from Nest 13.
At 64 nests, we have exceeded the 60 nests we had for all of 2016 and we're ahead of our pace in 2015 when we had a record 75 nests. Twelve more for a new record?
Judy Morr, Jim & Jo Eisenhauer and Richard Glasgow found a crawl north of boardwalk 3. Tim Morawski, Terry Fansler and Sandy MacCoss responded and Terry found nest #62. There was a broken egg in the nest and it was used as the DNA sample. The 135 eggs were moved to higher ground.
Sue Scully later reported another crawl in front of the Beach Club Villas. Tim and Terry went back out at 10:00 AM and Terry found nest #63. They moved the nest of 101 eggs around the Club to the nest area 20 yards south of boardwalk 6. There were 2 eggs broken in the nest and one of those was used for the DNA sample.
Lauryn Gilmer sent a picture of the hatchling crawl out of nest #2 We will inventory #2 on Saturday. We'll let you know the time.
We were very, very busy on the beach this morning.
We got a call last night from beach goers on their bikes watching a mama coming in to the rack, starting to dig and then going back out to sea. Before Bill and Linda Nelson could investigate that crawl they and Mary Zamara with her grandsons found another crawl and the mama leaving the beach. They helped keep the other people on the beach away from the turtle. Judy Morr then responded and found nest #59, Linda, Mary Zamora and her grandsons moved the nest of 119 eggs.
Walkers reported that 1 or 2 hatchlings had emerged from nest #4. They also had a crawl past the last dog sign close to the river. Judy Morr probed but couldn't find a nest. It was declareda false crawl.
Vicky & Bob Becker, Jane Magioncalda & Joe Ficarra reported that nest #8 had boiled. They also found some shell fragments and a dead hatchling in front of the yellow house north of the club. They nosed around and found a wild nest! It was nest #60 which Bill Nelson marked and screened.
We then got a call about 9:45 informing us of yet another crawl at the Beach Club Villas. Jane and Joe went back to the beach to check it out and Judy Morr came back out to help. Jane Magioncalda, prober in training, found nest #61! There were 90 eggs.
We work hard and long to get those nests. Judy and Jane and Joe were still at it on the beach at noon. That's dedication for you!
Nest #1 was laid on May 4th and began hatching 62 days later on July 5th. It was the first nest to hatch in South Carolina!
The crawl was found by Terry Fansler, Gloria Reynolds, Chris Czander & Pat Luzadder and Judy Morr found found the nest. Here are the results:
Shells 119
Unhatched eggs 3
Dead hatchlings 1
Live hatchlings 11
Total live 116
Hatch success 96.7%
Emergence success 86.9%
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