And we thought last year was busy...

The Welcome Tree

Steve and I arrived on Ossabaw May 9th.  Nearly every day since returning "home", the sea turtles have been hitting our beaches harder than ever in nesting history.  This is true for both Ossabaw and Georgia.  Overall, there are twice the number of nests as last year and four times as many as two years ago.  The best part of this, is that Ossabaw has more nests and overall activity than every other Georgia beach.  Take that, Cumberland!  Another bit of great news is that we have 3 of 7 leatherback nests in GA.  The first was spotted by our boss on an aerial survey April 19th, which means we'll enjoy an early emergence this summer.  All the great news isn't without loss.  We have already had four dead stranded sea turtles: 1 loggerhead boat strike, and 3 Kemp's ridleys with no obvious cause of death.  Numbers are also up across the state, but there isn't any leading cause of mortality.

Kate in leatherback crawl

Any guess where the nest is?

We are also enjoying the great success of our nesting shore birds.  The slough near South Middle is home to a nesting least tern colony.  We have four confirmed nests so far, and I started scouting out more possible nesting and courtship/breeding behavior today.  For those who read our blog last year might remember that the least terns were unsuccessful last summer.  I'm very optimistic that the established nests will hatch.  South Middle is also home to an American oystercatcher family with two adorable chicks.  They hatched out about a week ago and have been seen all around the beach with their parents.   Again, a nesting adult pair was unsuccessful last year so we're happy to see chicks!  This 1km stretch of sand is also home to countless Wilson's plover families.  We have to be so very careful when driving the ATV  because there are chicks everywhere!

American Oystercatcher chick

Of course there are so many stories to share so far, but right now we have to pack.  Steve and I are going to camp out and look for nesting turtles tonight!