Nest Emergence Update – Nests 1-12 are done!

We knew this summer when the nests were piling up on top of each other (not literally, just continually) that we would have a busy end of summer and fall. We’re finally resurfacing for air after “round 1” of our series of nests. With eight excavations since Monday alone, it’s been difficult to get updates to followers but I hope to give some fun information now.

To date, Nests 1-12 have all finished up.  We’ve had great success and some surprises.  Nest #4 never saw any activity so we excavated at Day 73. To our surprise, every single egg showed no development.  Other nests also had a large number of undeveloped eggs but they at least had success from the other eggs.  We’ve also had nests trickle with a handful of turtles each night versus the classic boil.  If something different happened, it definitely has happened this year!  On the high end, we had 4 nests with over 90% hatch rates!

So here are some records for our current nests:

• Longest Incubation Time: Nest #1 at 73 days
• Shortest Incubation Time: Nests #11 and #12 at 55 days
• Largest Clutch Size: Nest #6 with 138 eggs (NEST’s all-time highest is 170)
• Smallest Clutch Size: Nest #3 with 42 eggs (NEST’s all-time lowest is 37)
• Highest Hatching Success: Nest #9 (96.8%)
• Highest Emergence Success: Nest #7 (91.8%)

For statistics on each nest, see the chart below.

Nest#	Town	Emergence	Incubation Days	Total Eggs	Hatching Success
#01	Duck – Sanderling #8	8/1/16	73	95	70.5%
#02	Nags Head – Bladen	8/8/16	68	70	91.4%
#03	Nags Head – Bladen	8/12/16	68	42	85.7%
#04	Nags Head – Glidden	None			0.0%
#05	Nags Head – Forest St	8/10/16	63	99	76.7%
#06	Corolla – Corolla Light	8/13/16	63	138	16.6%
#07	Corolla – Whalehead – Sailfish Dr.	8/15/16	64	122	94.2%
#08	Corolla – Whalehead – Mackeral St.	8/12/2016	61	126	34.1%
#09	Southern Shores – Chicahauk Trail	8/8/16	56	96	96.8%
#10	Duck/Corolla Border	8/10/16	57	75	77.3%
#11	Carova – MP 23.4	8/13/16	55	106	94.3%
#12	Kitty Hawk	8/14/16	55