On Day 46 of incubation, a large hole is found on top of the egg chamber, ghost crab hole is found behind the chamber
Day 47, one lone hatchling emerges from the egg chamber and runs to the water
Chased out by Ghost Crab?
Ghost crab is seen in it's hole, every once and a while, it throws sand out of it's hole, into the egg chamber, Soon the original hole or depression in the egg chamber is filled in by the sand the ghost crab is throwing.
Evening of day 47, a fox is spotted running along Ocean Blvd, not far from the beach access leading to the location of this nest
Morning of day 48, another hatchling has emerged and disappeared into the water, leaving only tracks
Sept. 11th, evening of Day 48, another lone hatchling emerges as darkness falls. An hour later, major boil.....
Soon, only tracks are left
Check of nest the morning after the boil, surprise,
the fox has been able to crawl under the cage and dig
into the egg chamber
Two hatched egg shells were found outside the egg chamber
Fox dug under the cage, under the legs of the cage and squeezed in to the cage to dig deep into egg chamber
Cage is removed and reset further into the sand but the fox continued to try to get into the egg chamber for the next three days, until the inventory.....
Day 4 after emergence, Inventory is conducted.
One hatched egg shell is found and then...
one live hatchling
Then a whole pipped egg is pulled out, hatchling head is just showing...to delight of all, hatchling is alive
and soon wiggles out of the shell
His body has not quite straightened out so decision is made not to release him just yet, he is reburied on a different beach, away from the fox activity
A second live hatchling is found, deeper in the egg chamber, the two strong hatchlings are released on the beach to begin the journey into the sea
Cage and poles are removed, hole from egg chamber is filled in, dunes are put back into order
But the fox is back the next morning, digging up the empty egg chamber
Ghost crab is also back........ looking for left overs
Fox is spotted at 6:30AM, not to far from nest
Sharkley, the live hatchling that was found half in/half out of egg, emerges from his new hole 3 nights later. Sharley was reluctant to leave land to go into the water. He crawls to the water line and then
crawled back up to his hole. He is found by STP Volunteers Matt and Ingrid. With a little encouragement, he finally entered the water.
This nest was one surprise after another. Mother crashed through dune fence and laid her eggs on the back side of the dunes, sand on egg chamber first depressed on day 46 of incubation, first hatchling emerged on day 47.
Major emergence was the evening of day 48.....fox came along and dug in to the chamber after most hatchlings had left.
Despite the ghost crab and fox activity, all 105 eggs relocated from original nest were accounted for.
Inventory results:
106 eggs in original nest, 105 relocated, one egg used for DNA Study
94 Hatched shells, 10 whole or unhatched of which two died in late development, fully formed turtles in shell
2 pipped eggs of which one was alive and crawled out of shell on it's own (counted as a hatched egg), the other pipped egg, hatchling was dead, counted as unhatched
2 live hatchlings found in the egg chamber, released on the beach, 1 dead hatchling found
The live pipped hatchling was reburied per DNR Instructions, this little guy emerged on it's own 3 nights later and crawled into the ocean.
90% hatch success rate!!!!
