More mice, more turtles, more mechanical problems, more fun.

I woke up the the familiar sound of a mouse, trying to scratch and chew it's way out of our little mousetrap.  Normally, I leave them in the trap until we are far from home, but this mouse was a bit too big for the trap, and was twisted and upside-down inside.  I felt bad, so I transferred him into a jar.  I put the trap on top as a lid.  He was happier now, and began to groom himself.  Then we sat down for breakfast.

All of a sudden there was a loud noise in the kitchen.  We turned to look, and the mouse had leaped up, knocked the trap off the jar, and was standing on the rim.  Kate yelled. "oh no!" as I ran to try to contain him.  He jumped to the counter, and I grabbed the jar to try to put over him. The jar was too small, and we had no other choice but to let him escape behind the stove.  We named him Dufresne, in honor of the famed escapee from the Shawshank Redemption.  It was an exciting start to the morning.

Afterward, I went outside and crossed my fingers as I fired up the Mule.  Yesterday's backfiring issue had given us a real scare that we might be relegated to the truck for weeks of turtle work, but the Mule started right up.  Mark told us yesterday that we should treat it as if there is a lot of karma involved, that we should baby it and talk nice to it, never slam things down on her, etc.  He said it worked for his VWs, and will hopefully apply here as well.  So far, so good.

I packed the regular gear into the bed of the Mule, deciding to take 6 sets of screening materials with us today.  Kate got the snack bag, water jug, rain gear, cameras, radio, phones, extra clothes and towels together and filled up the trunk (storage in the front).  We take so much stuff with us everyday, it's almost ridiculous, but it all has a use, and whenever we decide to leave something home, that's when it turns out we really want it.  My camera being the best example, as it takes up the most space, and whenever left behind, great photo ops are missed.  I'm glad I brought it today though.

It was still twilight as we approached the causeway through the marsh, on our way to north beach.  There we were greeted by more birds than we've seen yet.  We stopped for a few minutes to admire them and take a few pictures.  We saw Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Night Herons, Wood Storks and Red-winged Blackbirds.  I'm sure there were other birds there too, but we're still learning.

We couldn't stay too long with the birds, as we knew turtle tracks were waiting.  We encountered 2 feral hogs, and 2 deer before arriving on North Beach.  I turned right toward the kayak and bumped into a crawl.  It looked like a nest, and high and dry.  Since it was so close to the kayak, we agreed Kate would start working it after she finished North Middle and I would continue north on my survey.  I dropped her off, spun around and started driving.  It didn't take long to spot another crawl, and then another.  I was trying to make my way to the north end, so as to avoid getting cut off by the little creek that now forms with each incoming tide.  By the time I reached Bradley Point, I'd crossed 6 crawls, all of which looked like nests.  I knew I'd need Kate's help to get the work done before the tide, so I headed back south, stopping only to check on all our incubating nests.  Every one looked good - no more wash overs!

Kate wasn't there when I got back to the kayak.  I knew this meant she had a nest too, so I started up the first crawl we'd seen to get working while I waited for her to return.  When I got to the top of the dune and looked into the body pit I saw the nest, it was dug up, and there egg shells scattered about.  This looked completely different from yesterdays scare, and I knew we'd officially had our first depredation.  I wanted to preserve the scene for Kate to see, so I did the paperwork, got out all the screening materials together and labeled a post and an egg vial.  She still wasn't back, so I drove to the next crawl, which wasn't too far away. I worked it up fast, having an egg in hand within a minute or two.  I saw Kate approaching, and went to pick her up.  She'd had one nest and one false crawl on North Middle.

She didn't like seeing the broken eggs at the first crawl, but Kate quickly went to work counting them.  18 eggs had been eaten.  It was a raccoon who'd done it.  One of the 18 only had a small hole it it, so we took that one for research, fixed the open nest cavity, and screened it off.  Then we headed north as the tide was still rolling in.  We skipped the stuff on the south end of the little creek, and went to work on the first one north of it.  It gave us only a small amount of trouble locating the eggs, and soon all 94 were placed safely in a higher dune.  The nest crawl was just a minute away, but digging up 131 eggs, placing them in a bucket, digging a new hole, and putting them all back eats up some time.  We were working fast and could see the gap between the sea and the trees closing.

We had one more to do, and luckily, it was able to be left in place.  We finished up, rushed back to the creek, and with some fancy maneuvering on Kate's part, were able to cross at a spot with a bit less than a foot of water.  We don't like getting the Mule wet with sea water, we know it will be the inevitable cause of her death, but sometimes it's unavoidable.  We just hope the fresh water bath we give her at the end of each day is enough to preserve her for the season.

Safely on the south side of the creek, we could slow down just a bit.  We worked up each of the two remaining nests, and were done North Beach around 10am.   We had used all 6 of the screening sets I'd packed this morning.  The turtles are coming now, and we know it'll only be getting better.  We'll be packing more screens now, and plan to drop a bunch off on the middle of North as a backup.  Luckily we'd already done this on South Middle, and we were able to head down there without going back home for screens.

When we arrived at the double kayak, we learned that our island had been invaded by students from the University of Tennessee.  They had tents all over the campsite there, and we got chatting to two of their professors.  I finally got on the kayak and Kate took one of them on a ride to South beach.  There she found a mass of people enjoying the Memorial Day weekend, and one turtle crawl.  She worked it up as her guest, who teaches invertebrate zoology, got to watch.  It had to be relocated, so he got a real treat, getting to see the entire process.  It turned out to be his birthday; Kate had really made his day.

Along my ATV ride, I found a different kind of turtle on the beach.  It was a Diamondback Terrapin which had made it's was out of the marsh and down to the beach.  I didn't have my good camera, but I managed to get a picture with the camera we carry in our kit for strandings.  He didn't like me being there too much, and waited as a did, he wouldn't come out of his shell for me.

Also during my ATV ride, the machine quit on me.  This is not good.  The ATV is our only way of patrolling South Middle.  There are no roads to it, and it's too big to walk.  The ATV itself could only be moved out there at a low-low tide.  It sits out there in the elements, never getting the fresh water bath the Mule receives, but still, has until now, has been more reliable.  I tried several things to get it going, and eventually did, but it continued to stall out three more times.  It seems like a fuel related issue, though I'm still not certain.  I switched the fuel over to it's reserve tank, and that allowed me to finish my patrol, which included just one false crawl.  Kate has assigned me to this patrol, until the ATV runs properly again.

Before I left South Middle, I called Kate and learned she had a nest.  I grabbed her a spare screen and some stakes, and paddle back to the landing.  I ran into one of the UT people again, and was invited to lunch.  Kate hadn't come back yet, so I took up the offer - free food shouldn't be passed up on an island.  They were all quite nice, and I'll enjoy seeing them again over the next several days before they leave.  Kate finally arrived at the camp, and we headed off together to screen off her relocated nest.  Finished by around 1pm, we headed for home, chasing down a small alligator on the way.

After unpacking all the same things that we packed up this morning, and will repack tomorrow, and unpack again, until October... we got on the computer, logged our day's data, and got in bed.  The idea being to sleep until late evening, wake up and go on our first night patrol.  The turtles are here every night now, and tonight the tides are right, and the moon is still bright, giving us a pretty good shot at seeing one.

After about 3 hours of sleep, we are awake anyway.  Kate is using the time to get everything ready in the Mule and truck, while I do the blog.  It's 9:40pm now, and now that I'm finished writing, I'll try to get a few more hours of rest before we head out.  Wish us luck, if we find a turtle, it will be quite a moment for us.  We've really only worked with deceased turtles, and we're really excited to meet a big live mama laying her eggs in the sand.