Author: Ben Wurst

Photo(s) from the field

Posted on by Ben Wurst
Volunteers help to “re-plant” leaning osprey platform

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

This past week I was joined by a large group of volunteers to remove and re-plant a leaning osprey tower in Point Pleasant. It all began after Superstorm Sandy barreled through the area a little over a year ago…

This nest, along with many others, were uprooted from where they were originally installed. Many homes in the area were flooded by the storm surge associated with the storm (and many were still rebuilding when we were there). Any and all debris that was created ended up being pushed to the high areas of the marsh and in turn, people’s yards. This platform ended up in a homeowners backyard. Fortunately the platform was not lost and was thankfully re-installed by a bulkheading company who was working on the homeowners house. This was great news for the ospreys! Their nest had been returned to the saltmarsh and was, in turn, used again by them this past summer. They raised one nestling on the platform.

Things a-drift…a strong Nor’easter ended up pushing over the platform, which caused it to lean…significantly. However, the ospreys adapted and added nesting material to make sure their only nestling would not fall out. At the same time we made plans to re-plant the platform in a section of marsh with more soil, so the platform would have a firm foundation and support. A crew of strong and able volunteers met up with me to help fix the problem. They pulled out the platform and then we transported it to the new location. There we dug a new hole (around 2-3′ deep) and they easily dropped the short (around 12′ high) platform into the hole. These volunteers did a great job, and I was happy to see that many of them lived in the local area. It’s great to see locals getting involved in their local environment and I know that they’ll continue to watch over the nest if anything should happen to it in the future. I’m planning on working with the local community association (who owns the land) to install a couple more platforms for ospreys. There’s little suitable nesting habitat for ospreys up on N. Barnegat Bay and in the past we’ve had problems with birds nesting on houses, so this will only help reduce those occurrences.

Not exactly stable...
Not exactly stable…
Not much dry land either...
Not much dry land either…
Down she goes...
Down she goes…
All better!
All better!

Interesting recaptures on Great Bay Blvd.

Posted on by Ben Wurst
Barnegat Bay terrapin moves south…

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

ABINOQ. Photo by Ashley Hecht.
ABINOQ. Photo by Ashley Hecht.

Northern diamondback terrapins are known to have a very small home range. Some have only been found to occupy the same small creeks, year after year. To help study the size of terrapin populations in New Jersey researchers have used a method called mark and recapture. No one really knows the size of the terrapins population in New Jersey and throughout the range of the Northern subspecies, which ranges from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras. A portion of the population is captured, marked, and released. The method is repeated and the number of marked individuals is counted and should reflect a proportional number of marked individuals in the entire population.

Since 2001 terrapins have been marked on Great and Barnegat Bays. This past summer we got hits on three females that were PIT tagged (it’s like the Home Again chip for your pet). Their tags were read during road patrols by our intern Ashley. Two of the three were linked back to previous captures. Each is ID’d by the notches on their carapace (upper shell). Each bridge scute on their carapace is assigned a alpha code.

  • ACIJV –  First encountered on June 20, 2008 at age 7. Weighed 805 grams with a carapace length of 157cm. She was recaptured again this summer by Ashley on June 9. She is now 12 years old and weighed 934grams. Her carapace was 170cm long. She moved only .86 miles or 4,561 feet from her last encounter, which is typically the small range seen in terrapins.
  • The second is ABINOQ – she was orginally trapped on Barnegat Bay (near Gunning River and the Barnegat Docks) on August 23, 2011. She was 8 when trapped and weighed 766 grams with a CL of 170mm. She was re-caught this summer while crossing Great Bay Blvd in Little Egg Harbor. This now makes her 10 years old and she weighed 965 grams and had a CL of 180mm. Now she moved a total of 16.7 miles in two years!!
Natural movement of ACIJV around Great Bay Blvd. This is more typical of terrapins.
Natural movement of ACIJV around Great Bay Blvd. This is more typical of terrapins.
The extent of ABINOQ's travels...
The extent of ABINOQ’s range.

I find it really hard to believe that ABINOQ traveled 16 miles south in two years. There are a couple ways that she could have moved that far south. Superstorm Sandy – I think that this is a good possibility. Usually in late October most terrapins should have been entering hibernation, but a few could have still been active. I got a couple calls shortly after the storm hit from residents in the Little Egg Harbor area who found displaced terrapins in their yards. Given the fact that upwards of 6 feet of water were forced onto the coastal marshes with the storm surge, this could have pushed ABINOQ south towards Great Bay Blvd, where she was encountered this summer. Human intervention – this is also a very likely scenario. People often pick up terrapins when they find them on or near roads and sometimes take them home. Other times they take them and put them somewhere else, where they think they should belong… This summer I found a large female on an inland road in Upper Twp. (Cape May County). She was over 1.5 miles from any kind of brackish water…which is a long distance for any aquatic turtle to travel on land!

These findings are really interesting and with the data collected we’ll be able to learn a lot more about the local terrapin population. We hope to expand the use of PIT tags readers by fundraising to purchase additional readers. If you’d like to donate to help us purchase one, please shoot me an email.

Marine debris: Post-Sandy

Posted on by Ben Wurst
Is there more debris on coastal saltmarshes?

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Use the tennis ball as a reference point...
Use the tennis ball as a reference point…

Last year I started collecting trash and marine debris that I found at osprey nests along the Atlantic Coast. I’ve always removed trash from nests, especially trash that can harm an osprey through entanglement. Now it’s collected to use as an educational tool to make people more aware of the amount of trash that winds up in our waterways. Continue reading “Marine debris: Post-Sandy”

Photo from the Field

Posted on by Ben Wurst
Surprise! Two late season peregrine nestlings!

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Earlier this week two 3 week old peregrine falcon nestlings were banded by Kathy Clark, Supervisory Zoologist with NJ Fish & Wildlife. We checked this nest for hatching after earlier visits revealed that the pair had only began laying eggs when all other nests had young that were 3-4 weeks old in June. We’re really not sure when they were so late this year.  Kathy had to wait for temperatures to fall before banding the young, since extreme temperatures only stress out adults in addition to the stress of us humans checking on their nests.

Two 3 week old peregrine falcon young at a nest inside Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville. © Ben Wurst
Two 3 week old peregrine falcon young at a nest inside Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville. © Ben Wurst

2013 Osprey Census: So far, so good!

Posted on by Ben Wurst
Early results are good; public needed to help determine size of population

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Ben banding osprey young at a nest on Great Bay. © Ray Hennessy
Ben banding osprey young at a nest on Great Bay. © Ray Hennessy

I just wrapped up the most intense field season in my entire career. In cooperation with NJ Fish & Wildlife’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program I help to monitor and manage the state population of ospreys. For the first time in four years we are conducting a statewide census for nesting ospreys. Almost all areas that I’ve surveyed, from Monmouth Beach to Atlantic City (and Wildwood) have done quite well, and the effects of Sandy on nesting ospreys appears to be minor.

Barnegat Bay is an area where I’ve concentrated much of my work. Over the past 5 years the number of available nesting platforms has tripled, from only a handful to over 50. Almost every platform was active this year. Amazing enough, this year on Barnegat Bay, a total of four nests produced four young each (one can be viewed on a live streaming camera at Island Beach State Park)!! This is quite a rare occurrence and is something I’ve never seen, especially for all of them to be on the same watershed is simply amazing!! Full results from all the surveys will be released in early fall. All of the data collected from surveys will be used in the census and we are looking for the public to help fill in valuable gaps in data.

Ospreys are indicators of a healthy marine environment. Ospreys are top tier predators who feed exclusively on fish. Many contaminants runoff into our coastal waters and over time become biomagnified through the food chain. Ospreys are extremely sensitive to many contaminants, including organochlorine pesticides (DDT), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and heavy metals. Since ospreys eat the same fish that we do, then their health also has implications for people. So, the bottom line is that it is important to monitor the nesting activity of ospreys in New Jersey!

We need your help:

For the first time in the project’s history we’re attempting a statewide census of nesting ospreys without the use of aerial surveys! This was a common (and very effective) way of surveying large areas in a short amount of time with only very minimal staff effort. Some things have changed since the 1970s and 80s….the survival of ospreys are not in jeopardy and helicopter surveys are much more expensive now! Over the past 6+ years, with help from many dedicated volunteers, we have surveyed around 70% of the known population in New Jersey. This year, CWF and NJ Fish & Wildlife’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program decided to release the locations of almost 1,000 known nest sites for ospreys to the Center for Conservation Biology’s Osprey Watch, a global osprey watching community website.

On Osprey Watch anyone can see nest sites and then report nesting activity at those nests. Users can join our monitoring group “New Jersey Osprey Project” and report on any nests they watch or where we are lacking data. You can also map new nests, add photos, and even indicate the type of nesting structure. It’s a pretty awesome website for anyone who is into ospreys!! 🙂

 

Hatching!!

Posted on by Ben Wurst
Three healthy hatchlings at Forsythe NWR!

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Chicks!

If you haven’t noticed, we now have three healthy osprey nestlings at the nest at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, as viewed by our Osprey Cam. The first chick hatched on May 25th, the second on the 26th, and the third on the 28th. The eggs hatched in the order they were laid, referred to as asynchronous hatching. The incubation period was ~38 days for all three eggs (average is 35-37 in NJ; 32-43 throughout their range). With the cooler temperatures the longer period is expected. Osprey young are born semi-altricial, or are downy and require close parental care to survive. The male osprey has been very busy foraging and catching more prey to feed all the hungry mouths. Have you tried to identify the prey that they’ve brought in?

Monitoring New Jersey’s Falcons

Posted on by Ben Wurst
Spy cam helps ID nesting pairs

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Last year 26 nesting pairs of peregrine falcons were monitored in New Jersey. The core of the state population nests on towers (old hacking towers) and on buildings in urban areas. Each spring we assist NJ Division of Fish & Wildlife’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program to help monitor the core of the population by performing nest checks and by installing a remote, motion-activated “spy” cam in nests to record the adults as they enter and exit nests. The footage captures the legs of peregrines. Why? Many peregrines are banded before they can fly with a federal USGS bird band and a state bi-color, alpha-numeric band. The state bi-color band can be read from the video captured by the camera.  The information that these identifications provide is immensely valuable for relating peregrine origin and age to nest success, site fidelity and turnover rate in the population.

Here is a short clip from a nest site in Ocean Gate and the bird in the video was identified as a male (*8/*5, black/green) that was banded in 2005 at Sedge Island.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!!

Posted on by Ben Wurst
Single use plastic bag wrapped around ospreys neck…

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

We had quite a scare last week, on April 30th around 12:30pm, after getting a report from an observer of our Osprey Cam on our Facebook page. A single use plastic shopping bag had gotten wrapped around the neck of the incubating female. After getting the report we started to monitor the situation to see how it would unfold. The bag was loosely wrapped, so we hoped she would be able to free herself…which she did after an hour.

Here you can see the single use plastic bag around her neck.
Here you can see the single use plastic bag around her neck.

A lot of viewers and FB fans were asking why we weren’t going out to remove the bag from her neck. We answered each and every question to help make sure people knew that we were doing everything we could to protect her safety. First, we couldn’t just walk out to the nest (which is out in the middle of the salt marsh) without the female reacting to us and flying off the nest (with the plastic bag around her neck). Her flying off the nest with the bag around her neck would have only caused even more harm to her. She could have gotten snagged on a piece of nesting material and in the struggle could have choked to death or she could have fractured one of her eggs… Second, if she would have been tied down to the nest, then we would have enacted a plan to go out to the nest (after a certain amount of time) and released her. Our policy is that we will only intervene if it is a life or death situation. When we enter their nest sites we introduce stress to the birds which can ultimately do more harm than good. Finally, at least we have a camera to monitor the nest! Think of all the other 500+ nests in New Jersey where we only go out to monitor them once or twice during the nesting season. So much plastic winds up in osprey nests that it is a serious concern. People need to be more aware of their surroundings and do their best to make sure waste is properly disposed of.

There are ways you can help make a difference:

  1. Reduce the amount of stuff you buy and the amount of trash you produce
  2. Reuse what you can, recycle what you can’t
  3. Pick up litter when you see it. There is a great movement in Australia called “Take 3” and their message is simple: “Take three pieces of rubbish with you when you leave the beach, waterway or… anywhere and you have made a difference.”  
  4. Stop or reduce your dependence on single use plastics
  5. Use reusable shopping bags
  6. Don’t release balloons!
The female struggles to get free of the bag.
The female struggles to get free of the bag.

Statistics for plastic recycling are dismal… According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “In 2010, the category of plastics which includes bags, sacks, and wraps was recycled at almost 12 percent.” We’re lucky that she was able to free herself. This just proves that ospreys do not have an easy life. There are many threats to ospreys and they have very high mortality rates, which are around 80%.

On the positive side, the female and male continue to incubate three eggs at Edwin B. Forsythe NWR. We should start to watch for hatching around May 19-20th. We have been writing nest news with other life history information on a weekly basis on our Osprey Cam page.

 

Ospreys are back!!

Posted on by Ben Wurst
Meet the osprey pair at Nest #2835

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

I must admit, I’ve been anxious for the return of this pair of ospreys (and all others for that matter). The return of ospreys is a sign of spring, regrowth, and of recovery (from the effects of Superstorm Sandy) as we watch them rebuild their nests as we have helped to repair and replace many of their nesting platforms throughout our coast.

Over the past 6 weeks I had the task of installing a new remote/solar powered/high definition camera system on the coastal salt marsh of New Jersey. The camera system was installed inside Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville next to an existing osprey nesting platform. The camera system streams live video 24/7 from the nest to the Visitor’s Center at Forsythe and on our website. Since the system has been installed we’ve had crows, peregrine falcons (one that was a juvenile who was ID’d by her leg band and originated in Delaware), and a great horned owl (not good since owls are predators of osprey young) perch on the platform.

The nesting pair of ospreys arrived back from their wintering grounds on Friday, March 29th. We don’t know anything about the breeding pair other than neither is banded with USGS bird bands. The female has a very heavily streaked and prominent “necklace” of brown feathers on her breast. The male is  smaller and has a bright white breast. Since arrived they have already been copulating (breeding) on the nest and will continue to do so over the next few weeks until the female will lay eggs in late April. For now they will continue to spruce up their nest and the male will perform courtship displays, after a successful hunt or while carrying nesting material, near the nest to help strengthen their pair bond.

There is a microphone out at the nest and it works. Some issues have come up with pairing the sound and video feeds and we are working on getting that sound online. I will be writing a weekly “Nest Cam News” journal on the Osprey Cam page with information about osprey reproduction, life history and other cool facts about ospreys! Some other great news is that the Wildlife Drive at Forsythe NWR will be open this weekend!!

Female osprey at nest #2835
Female osprey at nest #2835
Male osprey at nest #2835
Male osprey at nest #2835