First Real Nest of the Season

Yesterday, May 21, Waties Island had it's first real nest: there was a crawl just above Marker #4 and a nest. This appeared to be the same turtle as the false crawl from the day before; we could see the same scrape mark in the middle of the track. Charlotte Hope of the SC-DNR thought this mark was most likely caused by a barnacle on her plastron. We called her "Barnacle Betty" and we'll look for her in the future!

Unfortunately, our island fox was at the nest before the walkers. She dug up the nest and really made a mess. We found 15 eggs outside the nest and only 2 inside the nest. This is a very small number of eggs. But this appears to be a very small turtle too; the width of her track was only 1' 6".

We did cage the two eggs and placed a marker at the site. A full team photo will be posted soon! Congrats to the Wednesday team on the first real nest!