A very busy morning Nests 12, 13 & 14 and False Crawl #6 on IOP May 16

Just when we were wondering why nesting is so slow, four sets of tracks were found by Turtle Team volunteers at dawn this morning. The first calls came from Trisha Hoff and Jeannie Milota where a loggerhead nested at the 9th Ave vehicular path. Peggy Klimecki was covering the other half of their section down to Breach Inlet. This was nest # 12 and contained 123 eggs that were relocated out of the active renourishment area to a dune near 31st Avenue.

Nest #13 was discovered at 48th Avenue by Linda Forslund, Liz Hartzell and Patti Porfelli. It was laid below the spring tide line in very coarse, sharp sand from the 2018 Wild Dunes renourishment project. One egg near the bottom of the unusually small clutch of 54 was found broken in the nest and was used for our required genetics sample. Another was found to have a string of excess calcium that we sometimes see when the shell is being formed. This can look like a string of pearls. Normally a nest contains well over 100 eggs. Since it had to be moved higher on the beach, this nest was also taken to 31st Avenue.

Nest #14 and False Crawl #6 were discovered by Sandy and Harold Hirschmann in Wild Dunes. It is the third nest to be laid at the base of the eroded steeply 'scarped dune at Shipwatch. From the timing of these three nests, it is very possible that the same loggerhead mom laid all of them and this is her preferred spot which is not a good one because the tide can come up to that eroded dune. There were 113 eggs in this clutch which had to be moved to 31st Ave as well. Then Sandy & Harold spotted loggerhead tracks in Dewees Inlet near the 17th tee of the links golf course where the turtle did not crawl up to the high tide line before turning around. This non-nesting false crawl was recorded as well.