"Bahama Mama" - If You Look Close, You Can Detect The Color Bands On her Legs
reported on a piping plover that had nested four times this
year. One reason we know so much about this individual bird is because it is one of just a few banded piping plovers found in New Jersey-it was originally banded in the winter of 2010 in the Bahamas.
This specific bird, dubbed Bahama Mama by our staff, was first observed this year at North Brigantine Natural Area on March 29. It spend the next several months finding a mate, laying and incubating eggs, and finally trying to raise young, a cycle that ended unsuccessfully near the beginning of August. Normally that would be the end of the story for this year, but because we are conducting post-breeding/migratory piping plover surveys once a week at this site through the end of October, we have more to report.
As of last week, Bahama Mama was still present at the same site, nearly two months after breeding concluded and six months after she first arrived. The fact that she has remained there well after the nesting season ended is a huge surprise and defies conventional expectations. We fully expected her to be on her way back to the Bahamas by now. Continue reading “Update from the field”
Piping Plovers and Conservation Partners in the Tropics
By Todd Pover, Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager
Todd Pover, CWFNJ Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager and Ellen Jedrey, of Massachusetts Audubon Society “making friends” in the Bahamas
We found the first piping plover nest of the season in New Jersey this week. In the course of our nest searching we also spotted two piping plovers marked with color bands indicating they had been banded in the Bahamas last winter. It is hard to believe that just a month ago these small birds were still settled in for the winter more than 1000 miles from our state.
And as I reported in an earlier installment of this series (It’s Better in the Bahamas – Part 1), I also spent a week in the Bahamas in January/February searching for piping plovers as part of the winter segment of the International Piping Plover Census. As exciting as it was to be part of the survey team scouring the islands and cays of the Bahamas looking for plovers, the Abaco (island) portion of the survey, which I participated in, was just as much about building conservation partners as it was about the survey work itself.
The Bahamas portion of the winter census was sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey, in close collaboration with the Bahamas National Trust and the National Audubon Society, itself a great partnership. My participation came about because of a partnership I have been cultivating with Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Coastal Waterbird Program. They were already slated to assist with the Bahamas survey and suggested I come along as well.
Even before we boarded a plane to head to the Bahamas, numerous local contacts had been established. Nobody on the Abaco survey team had ever been to the Bahamas and there were dozens of islands and miles of shoreline to be searched. We were headed there to help because of our expertise about piping plovers, not local geography – so in the end the success of the project really hinged on local knowledge and participation to help direct our efforts.
And there was local assistance from the moment we arrived. I was met at the airport by
David Knowles, Chief Park Warden for the Bahamas National Trust on Abaco, who generously took time from his busy schedule to orient me around the island. Within minutes of piling into his car, we were discussing similar problems we faced dealing with cats striking ground nesting birds – in my case with beach nesting birds and in his case with the Bahama Parrot, whose stronghold is the southern part of Abaco. David was a critical link in establishing key contacts on the island and helping us gain assess to some sites that would have otherwise been off-limits.
Important support came from the Friends of the Environment, a conservation group dedicated to protecting Abaco’s marine and terrestrial environment. They hosted a public information session at their headquarters which allowed our research team to discuss the survey and raise awareness, but also garner feedback from locals as to where our efforts might be focused.
Important advice came from plenty of individuals as well. Woody Bracey, a well-known bird expert from Treasure Cay, shared much needed information prior to and during the census, provided logistical support when it came to housing and transportation, and participated in various segments of the survey. (He was also a great boat captain and brought us to an awesome sand flat on Green Turtle Cay – one of the highlights of our trip). Bruce Wolck provided similar birding expertise and support on Elbow Cay. Beyond that, these folks invited us into their homes to share stories – they were all around great “hosts”.
We were introduced to Loggerhead Productions, a local film production company, who tagged along to shoot footage of plovers and interview us. They are now interested in coming to the states to film piping plovers on their breeding grounds – this connection may lead to a compelling film about plovers sometime down the road.
We met and talked to bonefisherman and boat captains, sometimes hiring them on the spot to transport us out to hard to reach locations (there was no shortage of those). We coordinated with resort managers and even picked the brains of random folks lying under a palm tree if that’s what it took. It truly took a “village” to complete the surveys.
I have talked extensively in the past about developing conservation partnerships – to the extent I fear it is starting to sound like a “soapbox” – but it really is the model we need to follow, especially for migratory species, such as piping plover, that cross state and international borders.
Being so vested in piping plovers that nest in New Jersey, I can get a little possessive about “my” birds. The trip to the Bahamas was a good reminder that they actually spend the majority of the year elsewhere – if anything, the plovers I saw in the Bahamas are “their” birds. That was one of the messages we tried to leave with the groups and individuals we met along the way in the Bahamas. But I guess the real message should be that they are “our” birds. Ultimately, if we are going to be successful in recovering piping plovers, we all have an important conservation role to play, right here in New Jersey and a thousand miles away in the Bahamas.
The Search for Piping Plovers on their Wintering Grounds
By Todd Pover, Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager
Todd Pover, CWFNJ Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager in search of Piping Plovers in the Bahamas.
One of the most frequently asked questions about piping plovers is, “where do they go in the winter?” In the most general sense, piping plovers that breed along the Atlantic Coast winter from North Carolina to Florida, along parts of the Gulf Coast, and on some Caribbean islands. Where our birds from New Jersey specifically spend the winter is largely unknown.
But research conducted over the past several years suggests that the Bahamas is a particularly important wintering site for piping plovers. Last winter under the auspices of Dr. Cheri Gratto-Trevor from Environment Canada, a total of 57 piping plovers were color banded in the Bahamas. All of the 41 banded piping plovers that were resighted on the breeding grounds last summer were found on sites along the Atlantic coast, including two that nested in New Jersey (Sandy Hook and North Brigantine Natural Area).
Every five years starting in 1991, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has conducted an International Piping Plover Census, which includes both a breeding and wintering component. In 2001, just 35 piping plovers were reported in the Bahamas, although it was noted that there was not a coordinated effort to survey the islands that winter. In 2006, a total of 417 piping plovers were found in the Bahamas on the winter census, a significant increase that was attributed to a more intensive survey effort. Even at that, given that there are hundreds of islands and sand flats in the Bahamas, many of them difficult to access, it is believed even more piping plovers likely winter there.
Piping Plover banded in the Bahamas in the Winter of 2010.
This brings us to 2011, which is once again an international census year. The USGS, in association with the Bahamas National Trust and the National Audubon Society have made the Bahamas a high priority for this year’s winter census. Towards this end, a number of piping plover biologists and researchers that work on the breeding grounds in the U.S. and Canada were asked to assist with the Bahamas survey. The survey was conducted from January 24-February 6, and I was one of about a dozen or so members of the research team fortunate enough to help out.
The USGS has just begun to tally the survey results, but a rough preliminary tally indicates just over 1000 piping plovers being recorded in the Bahamas this winter, a significant increase over previous surveys. If most of those birds are from the Atlantic Coast population, as banding results suggest, at least a quarter of that population may winter in the Bahamas. By all accounts, it appears it very well may be “Better in The Bahamas” for our piping plovers!
Stay tuned. Over the next several weeks, I plan on penning more installments about my Bahamas piping plover adventure, including details about the surveys themselves, the logistical difficulties encountered, and the various local partnerships developed along the way.
The final results are in and it was a banner year for piping plovers in New Jersey. Statewide, our piping plovers produced an average of 1.39 fledglings per pair – one of the highest rates recorded since monitoring began several decades ago. Those results couldn’t have come at a better time. Fledgling rates had been poor the past several years and at just 108 pairs the breeding population is still extremely low. Because piping plover chicks often return to the same general area where they were born when they are ready to breed, the hope is that this year’s success will help grow the state’s population in the next several years. To find out more about the results of the 2010 piping plover breeding season click here (pdf). And if you want to find out more about how the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey helps protect piping plovers in our state or how you can help, click here.
American Oystercatcher Working Group annual meeting. Photo by Tracy Borneman.
Working closely with wildlife is the “sexy” part of my job. It is what makes me look forward to work on those days when I find myself less than inspired. It is also what the public most wants to hear about. But it is not necessarily the most important part of my job.
A great deal of my conservation efforts happen in meetings, offices, and behind a computer screen. A good case in point is the American Oystercatcher Working Group meeting I attended in Wellfleet, Massachusetts last week. This annual meeting brings together other managers, biologists, researchers, and policy experts from the Atlantic coast states that are specifically focused on oystercatchers. It is a chance for all us to share ideas, compare “notes” so to speak, build partnerships, and in general leverage the collective knowledge of the group.
This particular meeting is small by most standards, typically just 25-35 attendees, and much more informal than others I attend. It is also one of the most effective. Simply put, we get stuff done! Sure, we have spirited discussions and debate, but at the end of the day there is usually a cooperative spirit.
Projects move forward to benefit oystercatchers in individual states from Massachusetts to Florida, but through the prism of what is best for the range wide conservation of the species. This is how it should be. My job is to help monitor, manage, and protect oystercatchers in New Jersey, but since we only host a portion of the overall breeding population and they only spend a small part of each year in our state, we are just one piece of the puzzle.
You cannot effectively recover or conserve a species without partners. So we will keep telling you sexy, up-close-and-personal stories about wildlife, but once in awhile we will also remind you about the behind the scenes work we do to keep wildlife from disappearing from our state (and beyond).
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.
