Our First False Crawl, and First Clams.

The alarm clock went off at 4:45 again this morning.  Somehow it got off station and instead of the usual Morning Edition on NPR, it was playing 70's classic rock.  Yesterday during our first attempt at finding the turtle nest I was bitten twice by the same fly on my right foot.  I must be slightly allergic to whatever type of fly it was, because by the time we went to bed, it was red, swollen and rather itchy.  Kate fixed me up with an ice wrap and elevated it, leaving it hanging out of the covers.  This meant that I ended up on the right side of our our king sized bed (really two twins pushed together), which has the alarm clock - I snoozed it three times.  Maybe it was the one beer each we stole from Andy's fridge while feeding his animals in order to celebrate our first nest with.  Perhaps it was the long and tiring day we had yesterday.  Or maybe it's just because it is still dark as night (I guess technically it still is night) when we awake.  In any case, it's hard to pull down the covers and exit the bed in the morning.  When the idea of finding another nest finally enters my very groggy mind, it becomes a little easier and the morning routine begins.

Kate promised last night to make me breakfast this morning.  Of course she made cereal, which I knew would happen, but at least she added a hard boiled egg (which I cooked previously) and half an avocado to round it out.  She can normally cook a mean breakfast, but I think these mornings are just too early for her to function.

After breakfast we started packing up the Mule.  Kate went out to the Turtle Shed to get some extra screens and stakes.  We've only been carrying one set, expecting our first nest, but now that it's begun, we'll have to carry more.  I was loading our other equipment into the bed when I was startled by two donkeys.  They don't normally come right up to us, especially not in the morning, but these two wanted something, most likely food.  It could be that they smelled the bucket of crab parts sitting on the porch from yesterday's lunch, but that doesn't seem like donkey food to me.  They are strange creatures though, so who knows.  Later today, I had to chase 3 of them out of the auto shop while I was trying to work on the Mule.  They're very bad, they get into everything.

So off we went to do our patrols.  We went north first so that we could finish up the day at the south end and head over to the hunt camp and meet the barge.  Every six months a barge comes to the island and brings new (really old, but new for the island) equipment, propane tanks, tankers of fuel, etc.  We are expecting our very own pickup truck!  Though when we finished our patrols today the barge had yet to arrive, so we'll be receiving the truck tomorrow.  Back to the patrol...

I headed up North beach after dropping Kate at the Kayak.  Right away on my drive I spooked a bald eagle who was fishing down on the beach.  He flew up and over me, and headed off into the nearby trees.  We've been seeing one eagle down on the south beach pretty regularly, but this is a new eagle. They really are quite a site.  I continued on my drive and once again came upon a hundred or so horseshoe crabs washed up on the beach.  They mate at night, the smaller male latching onto the larger female.  Some are still hooked up when we find them upside-down.  We plan to make a trip out at night to see just how many really come up.  It must be a lot if that many are stranded each morning.  A raccoon was feeding on one unfortunate crab as I approached.  He caught sight of me and ran over the dune.  The raccoons here are a reddish brown color, different from what used to eat our cat's food off the back porch in Tampa.

I continued cruising along, scanning the beach when right in front of me I spotted a crawl.  I had to hit the brakes quick before I ran over it.  This was my first crawl by myself.  I saw Kate's yesterday, but only after she had already found it and drove me back to it.  I guess I started feeling what she would have yesterday.  I did a scan of the track, marked it off, finished patrolling North Beach and headed back to get Kate, scaring the raccoon off again after he'd reemerged from the dune to finish his breakfast.  I had to wait about ten minutes for Kate to finish her walk.  I think we are going to get my bike from the RV soon and use it on that beach to speed things up.  She came back carrying two inflated balloons, "Happy Birthday" and a yellow happy face.

We got back to the crawl and started working it up.  It was much different from yesterdays.  This crawl only had one track.  The turtle must have crawled out right over her in track.  Because of this we could not tell the species, or determine if there was a differential indicating a time span spent on the beach.  The crawl ended with some disturbance, which might indicate a nest, but the placement was poor.  I thought if it was a nest, we'd have to relocate it.  The disturbed area was just at the high tide line and surrounded by drift wood and sea wrack.  This area of the beach is erosional, with a scarped dune and some bone yard.

Our patrols on the south beaches were uneventful.  Kate tried looking for more whelks for fritters but the tide was too high to get to the good spot.  I took a swim between South Middle and North Middle to retrieve a bucket I left there a few days ago.  I had a purpose for the bucket... During my kayak trip out to the ATV I noticed something on the bank of the creek that we've been looking for - a clam.  We've seen plenty of shells around, but this was a whole clam.  It was high and dry, and I thought it was just a washed up dead clam, but as I got closer I noticed two open pairs of clam shells in the same area.  I just had to try digging.  It didn't take long before I was pulling them out one after another.  Little-necks, top-necks, cherry-stones and quahogs - I was finding them all.  I filled the little compartment in the kayak and decided to go do my patrol and retrieve that bucket.  I got a few more on the way back after my patrol, 17 in all.  When we got back home, I put them in fresh water so they'd spit out their sand and salt.  Later, we had them for dinner.  The smaller little-necks and top-necks we steamed and ate whole.  The larger cherry-stones, and the 3 very large quahogs, I boiled, then diced, and added to a butter sauce to dress some baked asparagus.  We also had mashed potatoes and salmon.  The salmon was frozen, we're still frustrated we haven't figured out fresh fish, but we are very happy to have clams added to our ever growing list of free island food.

After dinner we went out to feed the Ms. West's horses, pigs, and goose, and Andy's dogs, cats and birds.  Eric and Amanda are back with the baby, and are taking care of their own pets now.  I took my camera to the stables today and will add more photos to our web album soon (including some close-ups for you Dr. Bard).  I added a widget to show you the nest count for our beach over on the right.  If you are interested in a summary of our data, you can see it here.  Until tomorrow...