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Friday, June 1, 2007

Posted on June 6, 2007 | Filed Under Daily Journal 

Daily Observations

Friday, June 1, 2007

Observers: Katy and Gale

Observations: We left the Turtle House at 5:15 A.M., Katy monitored North Beach and I monitored South Beach entering at South Beach Entrance at approximately 5:45. North Beach was monitored by running Seaside Spit then driving the north end of North Beach by Katy.

South Beach was monitored from South Beach Entrance northward toward McQueens Inlet to beat the flood tide. One crawlway was encountered on the south margin of McQueens Inlet with a certain nest [31.63243 N; 81. 13050 W] at its zenith. This nest had two covering pits and was situated in the front of the wrack zone on the backbeach. Due to a rapidly flooding tide, I put two plastic screens over the probable nest and scooted back south to avoid being trapped by the tide. I then monitored southward across Flag Inlet to a beach obstruction near the south end of Flag Lagoon, turned around and headed back toward South Beach Entrance … when I noticed a possible nest immediately south of Flag Inlet at [31.58216 N; 81.15594 W], before recrossing Flag Inlet ahead of the flood tide. Katy joined me at South Beach and we walked across Flag Lagoon and crossed Flag Inlet to complete nest 007-004 which we determined had been deposited on Saturday May 26. Evidence of this was established by bicolored eggs, white below and pinlish above and by Ghost Crab burrows in the crawlway. Because of its location on the erosional overwash area south of Flag Inlet we decided we would move it on day 12 … the morning of June 7. I found a beautiful coral colony crossing Flag Inlet (GAB 200706011) that will be cataloged into an invertebrate collection.

In the afternoon, on an ebb tide at about 12:30 Katy and I returned to McQueens Inlet (13:30), excavated the nest on McQueens margin and located the nest’s clutch with some difficulty and relocated it behind the storm wrack line onto the face of a northeast facing dune. A clutch of 104 eggs was taken out of the grond at 13:45 and replace in the ground at 13:56 in nest 007-005a [31.63203 N; 81.13028 W]. I stopped at Flag Inlet to observe vibracoring of Flag Inlet by the island Ecology program while Katy monitored SW Beach on foot, returning to Flag Inlet at about 16:46.

Gale A. Bishop
6/01/07