We received a call about a homeowner who found two great horned owlets on the ground. They had fallen out of a nest located in a pine tree in her backyard. The female owl was still sitting in the nest with one chick. Great horned owls use the vacant nests of other bird species and this nest was too small for three growing chicks. At this age the young owls are defenseless from predators, plus a rain/wind storm was predicted for that evening. The plan was to keep the owlets overnight in safe location and renest them the next day.
We met Ray Byrant, with Tri-State Rescue & Research, raptor renesting team at the nest site. Due to crowding the owlets would end up on the ground again if placed back in the nest. A basket serving as a substitute nest was secured in a nearby tree that was sturdier than the nest tree. The two nests are close enough that the adults can go back and forth between nests caring for the young. The female owl watched us closely the entire time and the owlets were “clicking” with their bills, so she knew they were there.
The homeowner will keep an eye on the nests to make sure the owlets remain in them until they start to branch. She reports that the adult has been at the basket nest several time since the renest. Thank you to the homeowner for calling to report these owlets, Vicki Schmidt, Matt Tribulski, Ray Byrant and Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research. It takes a team.
Eric Schrading (left), field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s New Jersey Field Office, presents the award to Colonel Jon Brierton, Deputy Wing Commander JBMDL. Credit: Tech. Sgt. Austin Knox, JBMDL
Recently the service recognized Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JB MDL) for their collaborative conservation work alongside the New Jersey Field Office and other partners in the region. The Military Conservation Partnership Award was presented to JB MDL on January 21 to acknowledge their efforts in conservation and research.
Through CWFNJ’s partnership with the USFWS New Jersey Field Office, there has been years of effort restoring native grassland habitat for Upland Sandpiper, Bobolink, and Grasshopper Sparrow at the JB MDL. Roughly 400 acres have been restored to date and will continue into future years. Additional work with Northern long-eared bats at JB MDL has been really successful and insightful in recent years.
The service writes, “the JB MDL demonstrates an exceptional commitment to cooperative partnerships, protection of rare species, and provides high value outdoor recreation programs to the public and our veterans, all while achieving military readiness”.
The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey is working on a new project starting this winter to restore habitat for two species of imperiled marsh birds, the eastern black rail (Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis) and the saltmarsh sparrow (Ammospiza caudacuta). CWFNJ has partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on a three-year project to identify potential habitat restoration sites, conduct outreach to landowners, and implement conservation practices recommended for the target species. Outcomes of the project will include at least three habitat management plans and restoration of at least twenty-five acres of wetland and/or salt marsh habitat utilizing techniques in the Black Rail and/or Saltmarsh Sparrow Conservation Plans developed by the USFWS.
Most people are surprised to hear that American oystercatchers are present in New Jersey in the winter. They usually associate the charismatic shorebird as a breeding species here. Our state’s wintering oystercatchers, a combination of breeders from further north and our own, are at the northern extent of the Atlantic coast wintering range.
The 2021 nesting season was another successful one for New Jersey’s bald eagles, with the statewide population remaining stable at 247 nest sites. Of these nests, 222 were active (with eggs) with 296 young produced. Twenty-seven new eagle pairs were found.
One of the hundreds of least tern chicks at the Pt. Pleasant colony in 2021. Courtesy of Lindsay McNamara.
With 2021 coming to an end, we thought it would be fun to look back at this year’s beach nesting bird season in New Jersey, focusing on some of the surprises.
At the top of the list is the huge jump in our piping plover breeding population, up to 137 pairs from just 103 in 2020, an unprecedented 33% increase in one year and the third highest on record for the state since federal listing. This was a much-needed bump, as productivity has been high over the past few years, but we weren’t seeing any sustained growth in the population as a result as would be typical. So, when the final pair number was tallied this year, we were both relieved and surprised at how big it was! The challenge now will be to maintain that higher level or increase it even more, as it has fluctuated up and down quite a bit in recent years.
A year ago November I began tracking Duke. I was fortunate to see and photograph him more than a dozen times and wrote two blogs for CWF about these adventures.
Three Bridges adult perched on tower December 5th 2021 by Lisa Romero
We are happy to announce that the Three Bridges Eagle Cam will go live on December 15th. This fall, the nesting platform atop the transmission tower received some improvements from PSE&G. The perches were moved for a better camera view and replaced with wood to provide better perches for the adults and a second wooden perch was added along one of the sides. A foam baffle was added to the microphone to help buffer wind noise. These improvements will make the platform better for the eagles as well as enhance the viewing experience.
Congratulations to Luke Tan for having his photo Semipalmated Sandpipers Feeding win Runner Up in the Student Category for NJ Monthly’s Cover Search Competition. Luke volunteers as a CWF Shorebird Steward on the Delaware Bay during the spring shorebird migration. He captured this photo while on Reed’s Beach, Cape May County.
The Coastal Barn Owl Project team is gearing up for another round of nest box installations in coastal southern New Jersey. After a successful fundraising appeal, we can now thank our donors by adding more potential nesting opportunities for barn owls, a species in population decline.
Our fourth and most recent box was just installed on October 22 in the saltmarshes of Cape May County. With each install, the team is becoming more efficient, and we hope to get several more boxes up in key locations before early spring when the owls begin their search for suitable nesting sites.
The newest barn owl nest box with volunteers Kevin Knutsen, Steve Eisenhauer and Mike Lanzone on left. Team leaders Tricia Miller and Meghan Kolk on right. Photo by Lisa Ferguson.
