Click on Island Turtle Team for nest Statistics
Season ends for Island Turtle Team
We ended the year with a good inventory. Out of the 105 eggs laid and
moved to 25th Avenue only 4 did not hatch.
The final count on this nest was 96% hatch success.
Total Number of nests 15
False Crawls 11
Average Number of Eggs 116.5
Total Number of Eggs 1789 lAID - 1337 Emerged
Nest #14 Inventoried
A Dog's Life....Gets to watch the sunrise and see an inventory
Our next to the last nest of the season was inventoried today and our fears about fire ants were put to rest. We had seen ants in this nest a few days ago, but apparently no damage was done (perhaps they weren't fire ants). We knew a good number of the hatchlings came out on Thursday night, but today we discovered that there were quite a few more who had apparently gotten stuck in the very hard sand to the side of the egg chamber and were mature but still in the nest. They all scrambled to the water at dawn and swam away. Only 7 eggs failed to hatch, giving this nest a 93% hatch success.
Nest #13 Inventoried
Summer is almost over, the beach was cool enough for a light jacket this morning. We were able to help 10 hatchling, found at inventory, safely into the ocean.
This was a large nest of 137 eggs which was laid in a terrible erosional place where the trucked in sand was being dumped. Ninety of the eggs failed to develop and hatch and for 4 days a few turtles had been coming out and going to the water. Of the 47 that did hatch successfully only 10 were still in the nest at the inventory and these were carried farther away from Dewees Inlet to crawl to the water. The malformed eggs that were noted when they were relocated had also failed to hatch. Hatch Success was only 34%.
Nest #11 Inventoried
Beginning of a Solitary Journey
The results were good on Nest #11 at 2nd Avenue this morning with all but 8 eggs of the 105 eggs having hatched. There were 3 live hatchlings still in the nest and 4 dead ones. That means there were 93 empty shells and an 88% Hatch Success.
Nest #10 Inventoried During "Ernesto"
Oscar Pitkethly, Barb and Ben Bergwerf's grandson joined the turtle team
during his visit from England
When we inventoried the nest at 7th Avenue we found that the turtle had laid 123 eggs, and 12 of these failed to hatch. There were 2 live hatchlings left in the nest both of whom had some physical problems. This is typical of inventory hatchlings because they are the ones who are weaker or have deformities which probably kept them from emerging from the nest with their siblings. These two crawled toward the surf for a while but then got a lift from Franny Russell, the protective mom of the nest, to the water. Hatch Success was 90%.
Nest #10 Hatches Early
Nest #10 was very activelast night. Between 10 and 10:30 we started to see a small crater forming over the egg chamber. We watched as it heaved and the hatchlings pushed for a little over 1 1/2 hours when finally just about midnight they started toward the water. The houses had darkened their lights for us, but there was no moon at all, so we had to guide them with a lantern at the water's edge when they started to become disoriented, and we believe that over 100 hatchlings made it into the ocean. This is the shortest incubation duration yet at 48 days..
CLICK on thumbnails to enlarge photos.
Nighttime "Boil" at Nest #7
With no moon and storm clouds just off shore, the Turtle Team discovered
a depression at the 56A nest. We didn't have to wait too long before little heads and flippers started to pop out of the sand. Our wait was well worth it and the pictures below hopefully give you a glimpse of the small miracle we were able to enjoy.
These pictures were taken without using any flash. A night vision infrared camera was used. ENJOY!!!
Turtles Make a Quick Exit to Sea
At about 10:45 Nest #4 at 5A erupted. It took about an hour after the first little "crater" showed us that there was a boil brewing underneath, but the digging sounds were almost constant tonight, so we were pretty sure of what was to come. The timing was perfect because a film crew from the BBC were here. This morning we did a "fake nest" for them complete with tracks, body pit, "eggs," etc. And tonight the turtles actually cooperated beautifully. However, the number of hatchlings was not very large, maybe around 45 or 50, but they did "boil" out in spectacular fashion for the infra-red cameras and the huge crowd that had gathered around it. Franny will check it in the morning for more tracks, but the wind was quite strong and is likely to blow away any tracks if it blows this hard all night. The British children's TV show will air in October but only there and not here.
CLICK on thumbnails to enlarge photos.
Nest #15 on Isle of Palms
This morning Bill Schupp called in about tracks at 53rd Avenue. The nest was almost in a high enough place, but there was wrack washed behind it and a slight scarp to the beach behind it as well. So it was relocated to a dune a couple of lots south of the 25th Avenue path. We are worried about fire ants at 56A and also about late season storms & hurricanes, so we wanted a place safe from ants and erosion. We have to be more conservative about nest locations late in the season. There were 105 eggs which may not hatch until the first week of October since the weather is due to cool down some.
This morning Marilyn Colen as well as Dick Johnson, who was subbing for Joan Marchetti, discovered very long tracks going all the way to the low tide line at 53rd Avenue. This turtle unfortunately bumped twice into the sand fencing which is below the spring tide line there and was unable to find her way around it to nest higher on the beach.
She did lay 113 eggs in the second "V" of the sand fencing she encountered, but since we know that the tide sometimes goes beyond this fence, we knew that it would be fatal for these eggs to leave them here. So they were relocated to a safe high dune at Access Path 56A.
Inventory on Nest #1 07/24/06
Nest Number 1 at Access Path 5A had an 81% hatch success with 104 empty shells and 24 unhatched eggs. So the turtle laid 128 eggs in all. There was one lone hatchling who was released to crawl to the water.
Nest #1 "Boils"
At 10:40 pm Nest #1 overflowed with turtles. In some nests they sit on top of the sand for a very long time before starting to crawl. But these hatchlings just came charging out. It was hard to tell how many there were, but wouldn't you know, the tide was dead low so they had to walk forever. Daniel Jobe did a good job of standing in the water with a lantern since there was no moon and we believe most of the hatchlings made it into the surf. The houses were quite dark, but the skyglow was bright. I didn't see one ghost crab (the children had stuffed many holes) and by 11:20 all of the turtles were in the water. There must have been at least 50 people there, some of whom had waited for many nights to see this happen and it finally did. It's been a long week and now we can have a few nights off
Nest #13
Donna Smith found Nest #13 in front of the steep renourished scarp at the Summer Dunes Lane houses this morning. The turtle came in, crawled along the "cliff" of sand and bumped into several large pieces of concrete that are apparently construction debris in the trucked-in sand there. We were worried because a large "rock" of it was right in the middle of her small body pit. However, the field sign of thrown sand gave us hope. Turtles only throw sand in this way if they have completed the egg-laying process. After a few minutes we did discover the eggs which were rather small for a loggerhead. Some were actually joined together looking like little dumb-bells. There were 137 of them and they were taken to Ocean Point for a safe place. The original site would have been flooded for sure.
Nest # 12
Terri Stafford and Ann Evans found tracks near 48th Avenue close to the north end of their walk this morning. This small Loggerhead had wandered around quite a bit before nesting but managed to lay 108 eggs. We are always a little more conservative about leaving nests in situ after the middle of July because of the storm tides in the fall, and this is near a place where we lost a complete nest to flooding from Hurricane Alex and Hurricane Charlie a few years ago. So we relocated it to a safer dune near the Access Path #30A. Let's hope for a calm September this year..
CLICK on thumbnails to enlarge photos.
Nest #11 at 2nd Ave.
Another nest at the south end of the Isle of Palms was found by Joe Hager and Pat and Howard Fields this morning. This was a larger turtle than the one who laid at 7th Avenue day before yesterday and she didn't even make it to the spring tide line in front of 206 Ocean Blvd. The body pit was very small and some of the field signs were not very promising, but we did see that her outgoing tracks were about 75-100 feet longer than the incoming, so she was there for a long time while the tide went out. Mary Alice found the 105 eggs and we relocated them to a beautiful dune near the 2nd Avenue Access Path.
CLICK on thumbnails to enlarge photos.
Nest Number 10
After a long dry spell we finally got Nest #10 laid very high on the primary dune near the 7th Avenue Access Path. Franny Russell and Rowe & Romona Montillo were walking there and discovered this long awaited event. It was a fairly small turtle just as the one who laid 13 days ago at 56A and she really got up into the sea oats. We hope those roots won't be a problem, and we left the eggs in situ..
Our timing was good this morning. We were able to give DuBose Griffin and Charlotte Hope a wave as they flew over while doing a nest survey of the SC coast this morning.
Nest #8 at 41st Ave.
This morning Grace Rhodes found tracks near Access Path 27A. The turtle didn't do the typical activity in that she made a body pit and THEN crawled up into the high dunes where she crawled around and disturbed a few areas, but no large body pit was found before she went back to the water. We searched and searched for the eggs but were never able to find an egg chamber.
HOWEVER, meanwhile at 41st Avenue Catherine Malloy found the exact same size tracks with the same barnacle mark. We suspect that the same turtle who almost nested at 27A actually came ashore later and laid eggs at 41st Avenue. John Gulley reported seeing her going back to the water around 5:45 a.m. The eggs were nice and high and were not moved.
<Nests #6 and #7
We were happy to get 2 more nests today. The first one in the good nesting habitat between 21st and 41st was found on a high dune at the 22nd Avenue marker by Grace Rhodes and then Jessica Flowers. This was a relatively small turtle who crawled high, dug, and encountered a buried sand fence post where she left an open egg chamber. But she crawled a few feet farther on and succeeded in laying her eggs
.
Up the beach at 50th Avenue Bob Campbell also discovered tracks. This nest was laid in a rather low spot not far from where we lost a nest to flooding 2 years ago, so the 93 eggs were moved to a better spot at Access Path 56A.
<"Alberto" doesn't stop one of our loggerheads from nesting
We didn't think the turtles would nest during Tropical Storm Alberto, but one laid eggs in front of Nancy Houser's house at 57 Ocean Point during the storm last night. Nancy and Diane Goff were sharing the patrol of the north end this morning despite the high winds and showers and Nancy found tracks and a body pit in front of her house on the 17th fairway. Fortunately the full moon high tide and strong storm water may have caused her to crawl higher than she might have and the eggs were located quickly - just as the clouds parted and a rainbow appeared.
Turtle seen on the beach laying nest #4
Last night about 10:30 the police dispatcher called and said that people had reported a nesting turtle in front of 516 Ocean Blvd. When we got there 2 curious police officers were arriving and we found Natalie Ostendorff and her family watching the turtle. The wind was howling at about 30-40 mph so that the turtle was being sandblasted as she started covering up her eggs. She hid the nest, threw sand all around, and crawled back to the water. We marked the approximate location of the nest before we left the beach. This morning, with a little work, we located the egg chamber and marked the nest with a sign. She is probably the same mother who made Nest #1 which is only about 30 feet away from this one.
Nests #2 and #3
This morning Susan Garcia found two sets of tracks. One was a false
crawl at Beach Club Villas where the turtle ran into the rocks. This
turtle had the same barnacle mark as the 3 false crawls she made
yesterday in Wild Dunes. But then the other tracks found by Susan led
a nest of 146 eggs! Our barnacle girl finally suceeded on her 5th
try! These were way into Dewees Inlet and well below the spring tide
line. The eggs were laid later in the night after the rain stopped,
showing that this must have been her final attempt. We relocated them
closer to the Ocean Point boardwalk with Nancy Houser's help.
Meanwhile Sandi Brown and Daniel Jobe discovered tracks in front of
the sand fence at 51st Avenue. This may have been the other turtle
who participated in the 5 false crawls yesterday and she laid 125
eggs, two of which were found to be already broken in the nest. These
were relocated to a proper dune at Access Path 56A.
Neva Burk from Akron Ohio was visiting the Isle of Palms because she
read Mary Alice's book, The Beach House. We saw her on the beach
yesterday for the false crawls and today for the 2 nests and one
false crawl. It was good to have her come with us and watch the
process of nest finding and relocation.
Five false crawls on IOP
FYI Nancy Houser found 5 different sets of loggerhead tracks on her walk this morning, but we were unable to find one nest. It appeared that there were two different turtles because one had a very large mark from a possible barnacle on her plastron and the other did not. The beach renourishment on tha north end of Isle of Palms is a concern. If nests are not found early in the morning they could be in danger from both the heavy machinery on the beach and the high tides.
Turtle on the Beach
Early this morning we got a call that there was a turtle still on the beach just north of the Citadel Beach House. We rushed to the beach hoping to see the turtle before she returned to the ocean. This turtle was incredibily slow and we spent over an hour and a half watching her struggle down the beach. Hopefully she will be back tonight.
CLICK on thumbnails to enlarge photos.
First Nest on Isle of Palms
The first nest of the 2006 season was found this morning by Maggy Pennell and Monique Morales-Kroll in front of 516 Ocean Blvd near Access Path 5A. This was a great experience for Maggy since it was her first day to walk of her first season as a Turtle Team volunteer. It was also special for Monique since she has walked for several years and finally has her first nest. The incoming track was quite short but the outgoing track was about 5 times as long indicating that the tide was fairly high when she started nesting and that by the time she finished, the tide was low - she took a long time up in the dunes. Her body pit was in a nice high place and Bev found the eggs right away after we analyzed the field signs. We approved her choice of nesting spots and left the eggs right where she wanted them.
Monique Morales-Kroll and Maggy Pennell
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