Daily Observations for Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Posted on May 30, 2007 | Filed Under Daily Journal
Observers: Katy and Gale
Observations: We left the Turtle House at 5:30 A.M., Katy went to North Beach and Gale drove to South Beach entering at South Beach Entrance at approximately 6:00. 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 southward to a backbeach tree blockage as high tide was approaching (6.3 ft; 7:10 AM). Gale turned back northward toward McQueens Inlet and monitored northward. A non-nesting crawlway was encountered at [31.60753 N; 81.14397 W] between South Beach Entrance and the Big Washover. The loggerhead aborted this attempt after crawling over two palm logs on the backbeach.
A second crawlway was encountered at the middle of the Big Washover [31.60753 N; 81.14397 W] and appeared to be a nest (1.9 m x 2.1 m elliptical disturbed area, thrown sand, and disturbed wrack). The entrance and exit crawlways were very short (18 m) as the tide was flooding to its maximum. The loggerhead sea turtle had crawled into the heavy wrack on the backbeach, hit a small 10 cm scarp, then looped around and nested in the wrack zone. The nest was measured, sketched, and photographed by Bishop awaiting the arrival of McCurdy to help dig this nest.
The nest [007-003] was a complex, obstructed, backbeach nest deposited within two rows of wrack marking the last two storm high tide lines. The nest was dug unsuccessfully using a palm frond and a steel trowel. Then the magic Ti shovel was brought into play and the turtle’s track followed into the nest area along the entrance crawlway. The egg chamber was found with the tried and true left foot of GAB as it sank into the neck of the egg chamber (digging time = 18 m 09.75 sec). A new egg chamber was constructed 4.65 m immediately behind the original nest location [ 31.61279 N, 81.14123 W] to get the eggs a little higher and behind the highly erosional shoreline (where we successfully hatched many nests last year). Eggs were removed and counted by Katy into a relocation bucket The clutch of 127 eggs was placed into the new egg chamber with four data loggers [one at the bottom, one in the middle and one on the outside after 60 eggs were replaced, then one on top of the clutch] before it was covered at 8:59 AM, lightly tamped, then covered with a plastic screen and marked with an orange-topped stake [007-003a]. Katy then finished monitoring South Beach while Gale rode north on Jungle Road to monitor hogs (n-1).
Overview of loggerhead Nest [007-003] on South Beach, St. Catherines Island, Georgia. This nest was deposited the night of May 28-29 in heavy Spartina wrack; a simple, obstructed, backbeach nest. Because the nest was deposited in front of the storm high tide line on an erosional beach, it was judged to be in danger of inundation and doomed; the nest was set back 5.65 m to improve its chances of success from ~ 10% to ~ 90%.
We stopped by the house for lunch, then continued monitoring Middle Beach, entering by wading Seaside Inlet at 13:15, monitoring southward to McQueens Inlet and turned back north. The length of Middle Beach as measured with the odometer of a Garmin CXS 76 was 2.75 km from inlet to inlet. The 6 km walk took approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. After wading Seaside Inlet, we drove back to the Turtle House at 15:30.
Gale A. Bishop
5/29/07
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