There is not too much more we could have guessed would happen to a particular pair of piping plovers that nested at the North Brigantine Natural Area (NBNA) this season. Every time one of the staff members ventured out to NBNA, it seemed as though a soap opera was unfolding with dramatic twists and turns to the story! Disturbance, flooding, and the infamous Brigantine foxes were all to blame for the failure of three nests that a single pair of plovers laid. And just when we thought this pair was done for the season, they surprised us by laying their fourth nest! Over the course of two months, this very special pair of piping plovers determinedly laid 14 eggs! Continue reading “If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try and Try Again!”
Species diversity is critical for the continued health of any ecosystem. All organisms have a role to play, but defining that role for any species is no easy task. Certain species might act as a keystone, one whose healthy presence is absolutely required. Others might serve the role of an indicator species, the proverbial canary in the coal mine, with the health of that species being a sign of the health of the overall system. Without data, we cannot know. While data has been collected for several years for breeding and wintering populations of American Oystercatcher in New Jersey, very little data has been collected during migration. Collecting that data is my job at the moment.
The American oystercatcher is a species of special concern in the state of New Jersey. Causes for concern include their low population and risky breeding strategy, combined with habitat degradation from pollution, habitat loss from development, as well as increased predation and disturbance directly related to human activities within their habitat.
Although oystercatcher pairs will fiercely defend a territory from other oystercatchers during nesting season, in the fall and early winter they are almost always to be found hanging out together either at the beach or on the marsh. They can generally be relied on during the non-breeding season to roost in flocks near ocean inlets, but locating the flock and approaching to within band-resighting distance during a limited high-tide time frame can be challenging.
An ocean inlet can encompass a very large area; and when your quarry can fly and you can’t, that area can seem even larger! Just finding the flock and getting to an effective observation point (which even with quality optics is surprisingly close) without them “spooking” is more than half the battle. Using a boat or kayak, combined with marsh trekking and the occasional swim, there are few places the oystercatchers go where they cannot be followed and discretely observed.
The goal of this field research is to collect data on roosting flocks of American oystercatchers at southern New Jersey Atlantic coastal inlets during migratory season. The data collected also enables further research on life-span, survival rates, movement patterns, population, age structure and other important characteristics.
I’m incredibly fortunate to be a part of this important research collecting data vital to our understanding of this species, while at the same time being privileged to be able to enjoy and become more intimately familiar with our beautiful southern New Jersey coastal ecosystem. We would like to thank the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for funding this important research.
The American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliates) may not get as much attention as some other species since it’s not listed as endangered or threatened in New Jersey. However, it is listed as a species of special concern because the population is thought to be in decline. On Stone Harbor Point, the site I mainly monitor for my job, I spend a good deal of time finding oystercatcher nests and chicks. Together with Piping Plovers and Least Terns, oystercatchers constitute a large portion of the beach nesting birds found on “the Point”.
Oystercatchers are hard to miss; they stand nearly one and a half feet tall, are boldly colored, and have very loud calls. On average, they lay three eggs per nest, and incubate their eggs from April-June and care for their chicks from May-July. They tend to have much more trouble with predators and flooding during the egg laying stage. Once hatched, the chicks tend to have better survival rates. As of right now on Stone Harbor Point we have at least ten pairs of American Oystercatchers with offspring. One pair is still incubating a nest, nine pairs are brooding a total of thirteen chicks, and one pair has successfully fledged two chicks.
One of the ways to track these birds year after year is to put colored bands on their legs that are marked with letters and numbers so individual birds can be identified. Tom Virzi, one of our research partners (from Rutgers University), has been studying oystercatchers in New Jersey since 2004. Last week I had the privilege of helping two of his interns, Jason Pietrzak and Allison Anholt, band some oystercatcher chicks on Stone Harbor Point.
CWF Seasonal Chris Haxter holding captured American Oystercatcher chick in preparation for banding. Photo courtesy of Tara Hewitt.
The first step was to capture the chicks. Since the chicks can’t fly yet, all we had to do was surround and grab them. Sometimes easier said than done – the two chicks we went after were already a month old, so they were quite fast. Once captured we inspected the chicks, making sure they were healthy and their legs were fully grown. The band that goes around the leg of the chick is a small orange plastic cylinder with a black number/letter code (each state participating in this banding project has a unique color). After banding, we took measurements, including beak/head/wing length, and then collected a few feathers so the chicks could be sexed using DNA analysis.
The chicks were surprisingly calm throughout the process and the parents stood near us watching carefully. When we were finished we released the chicks back to the parents and kept an eye on them to make sure the parents accepted the chicks.
Adult oystercathers are also banded, but because they can fly the process is much different and involves some trickery. To try to capture the adults we set up a decoy, played some oystercatcher calls, and placed a board lined with many tiny nooses in the sand to capture the foot of the bird. When the adults defend their territory and fight with the decoy they get caught in the trap. We did attempt this but were not successful this time.
When a banded bird is re-sighted, and the code is observed and recorded, we are able to follow them for years. The data gathered from banding oystercatchers is essential in studying their long term habits, population trends, chick survival rates, and movement patterns.
Satellite image of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo courtesy NASA.
Margaret O’Gorman, Executive Director
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico should cause concern to us all. But for those of us engaged in stopping species loss on a global or national scale, it should cause mild panic and dread as we think about the oil slick fast approaching the coasts of Louisiana and Florida.
As the oil floats with malign intent towards to the Breton National Wildlife Refuge and other areas of coastal habitat, a dark cloud hovers over the piping plovers, least terns and other beach and shore birds in New Jersey. Their winter home is being attacked and the habitat they need to survive is being destroyed.
Piping plovers in New Jersey belong to what is known as the Atlantic Coast population. This population breeds along the Atlantic Coast from Nova Scotia to North Carolina. It winters along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts from North Carolina to Mexico, with significant numbers found on the Louisiana and Florida coasts in the Gulf of Mexico.
Piping plover numbers initially crashed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because of hunting. Since the Migratory Bird Treaty Act outlawed such practices in 1918, habitat loss and degradation has caused the continued downward population trend of these birds, leading the federal government to list the Atlantic Coast population as threatened in 1986.
Efforts to restore the population to a sustainable size have been ongoing since then with states along the Atlantic Coast developing and implementing management and recovery plans. In New Jersey, management and recovery plans for the piping plover are overseen by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and implemented by Conserve Wildlife Foundation and the state’s Endangered Species Program. The work which is described in detail on our website includes managing the population on a nest-by-nest basis, minimizing disturbance and predation and maximizing nest success.
In New Jersey, 120 pairs of piping plover are managed intensively as part of a national effort to protect this bird from extinction. The oil slick currently moving through the Gulf of Mexico just made this job a lot harder.
According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, oil can become a long-term contaminant in an ecosystem. Different types of oil weather out of an ecosystem over different time periods but oil can “cause harm to wildlife through physical contact, ingestion, inhalation and absorption. Floating oil can contaminate plankton, which includes algae, fish eggs, and the larvae of various invertebrates.” Oil can remain in the habitat for up to 30 years causing contamination to food chains and leading to irreversible damage to ecosystems. It can cause an ecosystem to loose or substantially decrease its carrying capacity for wildlife.
While the piping plovers in New Jersey and along the Atlantic Coast strive to successfully breed against the threats of spring storms, human and animal disturbance and, predators, their wintering grounds are threatened with a danger that has serious and long-term consequences.
So, as the crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico breaches the booms set out to contain it, we shiver for the piping plovers, least terns and other species whose winter just got a whole lot tougher.
It has already been a very busy Spring season. Finding the first piping plover nest of the year is always a highly anticipated moment and for our staff it came a little earlier than normal when it was found last week at Stone Harbor Point. And our nest wasn’t the first one found in New Jersey this year – honors for that go to the staff at the National Park Service, who found a nest a on April 11th at the Coast Guard base at Sandy Hook. In the same vein, our colleagues up at Massachusetts Audubon’s Coastal Waterbird Program found a nest on April 13th; the earliest ever recorded in Massachusetts!
So is there a trend going on? Perhaps the impacts of global climate change?
Well, it is definitely premature to make that conclusion. New Jersey’s earliest nest was recorded on April 6th, nearly a decade ago during the 2000 breeding season. And there doesn’t seem to be any clear trend to when our first nest was found looking over the past 25 years, although the third week of April is more typical.
It has been documented that some bird species are arriving on their breeding grounds and/or initiating nesting earlier, but we think the early start to piping plover nesting in New Jersey this year is the result of weather conditions. In this case the long run of relatively warmer than normal temperatures in late March and early April (including several days over 80 degrees), likely account for the early start, essentially jump starting the hormones of the birds. We often observe more active breeding activity on warm days during the early part of the season, but in a typical spring, cold spells slow things back down.
Regardless of what kicked the season off early, our seasonal monitors are definitely off and running. Piping plovers began arriving in New Jersey in March and with the help of dedicated volunteers and our partners at other federal agencies, we have already protected nesting areas with fence and signs at nearly twenty sites. And that is just the start.
