Volunteers are needed to help conduct a study that will measure all influences of shorebird distribution (food, predation and human use/disturbance) while altering human recreational use (close sections of beach, restricted access to key areas or to the waterline) to determine impact both to recreational use and shorebirds at a coastal stopover site (North Brigantine Natural Area). Volunteers are needed to survey shorebird behavior and distribution and/or human use of the natural area.
The ultimate goal is to recommend management programs that create the best protection with minimal impact to recreational use to all Federal and State agencies responsible for sites important to migratory shorebirds.
Shorebird Study:
Volunteers/interns must have the ability to:
Identify shorebird species including Red Knot, Semi-palmated Plover, Sanderling, Sandpiper spp., Dunlin, Ruddy Turnstone is required.
Accurately observe and record estimates of flock size and behaviors.
Work anywhere 11-hour days with breaks throughout the day on site as needed.
Walk several miles on the beach throughout the shift.
Communicate effectively, intelligently and positively with the public despite potential opposition.
Provide own transportation to Brigantine Natural Area.
Lodging will be provided for those traveling and/or working consecutive days.
Human Use Study:
Volunteers/interns must have the ability to:
Communicate effectively, intelligently and positively about the study with the public despite potential opposition. Volunteers will be supplied with a 1-page hand out about the project with contact information to share with the public.
Advise public of beach closure.
Interview visitors where possible to establish recreational activities, recreational rates, and perceptions.
Accurately record responses.
Work 11 hour days (includes two weekends) with breaks as needed on site throughout the day.
Provide own transportation to Brigantine Natural Area.
Lodging is available for those traveling and working consecutive days.
The schedule will be composed of 11-hour daily survey periods over the course of 12 consecutive days. This includes three pre-treatment days (10/13-10/15) followed by six treatment (beach closure) days (10/16-10/21) and three post-treatment days (10/22-10/24). Obviously, greater availability is preferred but flexible scheduling will be considered. We would like to keep this project a volunteer/intern support survey, so pay is not likely although may be considered if we are able to identify additional funding.
Enter the 2011 Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest!
by Maria Grace, Education & Outreach Manager
Open to all 5th graders throughout New Jersey, the very popular Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest encourages students to think about rare wildlife in New Jersey, not just on television.
To enter the contest, students research a species of wildlife that is rare or endangered in New Jersey. They write an essay detailing the needs of the species and the challenges to its future existence. They then create artwork – a painting or collage – depicting their chosen animal in its natural habitat.
Over the past 8 years, almost 20,000 students have entered the contest and have expanded their knowledge about New Jersey’s imperiled wildlife. Hundreds of teachers throughout the state have participated in the contest and have praised its interdisciplinary approach and its ability to create a deep appreciation for nature:
“My students love the Species on the Edge Contest because they enjoy learning about the many endangered animals in New Jersey, which fits into our curriculum. The contest helps raise their awareness about how humans interact with the natural world. My students take ownership of one species, and through artwork and research, they express their concerns about the environment and how to protect it.”
–Mary Keyser, Maple Road School, West Milford, NJ
A winner is chosen from each county in NJ, 21 winners in all. The winning artwork and essays become part of a statewide traveling exhibit, helping to raise awareness for New Jersey’s endangered wildlife. Finally, the winning entries are published in a beautiful, colorful calendar to help inspire people to conserve wildlife throughout the year!
2011 Species on the Edge Calendar
The contest is free and it’s easy to participate! Download your contest kit today from our website. The kit contains everything you need to participate – lesson plans, entry forms, and a list of approved resources for research.
The 2011 Species on the Edge Calendar is now available in our store for only $8. It makes a great gift for friends, family, and co-workers. Get your copy today!
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides food for migratory birds
by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager
This past spring, in April, over 1000 native shrubs were planted at a habitat enhancement site called Ballanger Creek, pronounced “Baaa-lan-ger.” The site is located within Bass River State Forest in Bass River Township and is being funded by a grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The purpose of the project is to create and enhance wildlife habitat while stimulating the creation of jobs in the local economy. Volunteers helped plant these shrubs in an area along the edge of an old fallow field (click on the “Learn More” link for before/after photos). The purpose is to provide a buffer between Route 9 and a housing development and provide food and cover to migratory birds and other wildlife. This summer was very tough for the new plantings. Many shrubs could not handle the drought-like conditions, while others did quite well. Of those that survived some went dormant early to survive the drought. Others in areas that had shade during the hottest times of day were able to produce fruit or berries like arrowood viburnum (pictured below).
Over twelve species of birds feed on the plump blue-black berries produced by the native shrub, Arrowood viburnum (Viburnum dentatum). The fruits ripen in early August and persist through October. Large thickets of arrowood can also provide important nest sites for many species of birds.
We are currently working on the third phase of the project which is to remove old fill from the edge of freshwater wetlands. Work on this phase is expected to begin in 2011. Later this month we will be planting some left over shrubs from the spring planting at the site. If you’re interested in volunteering please contact me for more information.
The work upon which this publication is based was funded in whole or in part through a grant awarded by the Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry, U.S. Forest Service.
“This institution is an equal opportunity provider.”
We are currently working on the third phase of the project which is to remove old fill from the edge of freshwater wetlands. Work on this phase is expected to begin in 2011.
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.
This weekend (September 25 & 26th) Conserve Wildlife Foundation will be at the 1st annual New Jersey Wild Outdoor Expo located inside Assunpink Wildlife Management Area. The event is being hosted by the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, Division of Parks and Forestry, and the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.
The NJ Wild Outdoor Expo is September 25th & 26th, from 10am – 4pm.
The New Jersey Wild Outdoor Expo is an exciting way to feature the state’s hunting, fishing and wildlife watching heritage. The event will educate participants about meaningful conservation and outdoor safety practices while fostering environmental stewardship and ethics in an effort to get more children, families and other groups into the great outdoors.
The Expo seeks to help people connect with the natural world by providing a unique blend of conservation information, education and hands-on opportunities to learn outdoor skills and activities. We will be conducting a “Build a Bat House” workshop at the event. We will also have an informational table with books, field guides, and apparel. Visitors can also learn about and try a wide array of activities including fishing, hiking, shooting sports, kayaking, rock climbing, camping, wildlife watching and much more.
A former golf course called “Ponderlodge,” now referred to as Villas WMA and officially part of Cape Island Wildlife Management Area in Lower Township, NJ is slowly reverting back to forested habitat. Forests and trees are good for migratory and resident wildlife, the environment, and people! Trees provide food and cover to migratory birds. Many early successional woody species like, Winged sumac, Black cherry, Sassafras, and Mulberry are already established on old fairways on site. Other trees like White oak, Willow oak, and Pitch pine are sprouting from seed, especially in areas where the overstory of trees acts like a nursery for these to grow quickly. As you may know trees naturally sequester or capture CO2. Over time, large amounts of carbon are stored as biomass in the parts of a tree (leaves, branches, roots, and trunk). A one acre reforestation site can sequester an estimated 3 metric tons of CO2 in one year. In 20 years that’s 65 metric tons of CO2 that is removed from the atmosphere. Once many of the fairways that we are working dilagently to reforest with the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife are reforested, over 170 acres forested habitat will exist on site.
This summer has been tough on many of our plantings. The severe drought in Cape May County has killed a large amount of seedlings that were planted in early 2009. However, when planting we choose to overstock or plant at a higher density to allow for some mortality to occur. Only the strong survive and will be more adaptable to future droughts!
Next year we plan to plant more seedlings on additional fairways to convert “fairways to forests.” We will be needing volunteers to assist with the plantings. If you’d like to volunteer to help plant trees send me an email and I’ll let you know when we’ll be planting (sometime in March).
As the Barnegat Bay Birder-in-Residence for CWF of NJ I led a total of 4 Bird Walks and 4 Birding by Kayak Tours in Island Beach State Park. It was very successful with a total of 60 people attending the Birding by Kayak trips and a total of 34 participants for my bi-weekly bird walks. There were many repeat customers, mostly from participants that enjoyed the Birding by Kayak trips so much so they wanted to attend my bird walks too. The participants ranged from beginners to excellent and avid birdwatchers. So it was a nice mix of skill levels of bird identification abilities on the trips. The Birding by Kayak tours were sponsored by the Friends of Island Beach State Park, so they advertised those tours via the IBSP Visitor Guide. As for my bird walks I advertised them by printing out flyers and distributing them to local businesses like Big Ed’s produce, Lavallette Post Office, Wild Birds Unlimited and Cattus Island County Park. Also Pete Bacinski of Sandy Hook posted my walks in the Rare Bird Alerts which is posted on the JerseyBirds forum. And of course, they were posted on CWF’s Calendar of Events.
The tours were extremely successful in seeing all of the common birds of the Barnegat Bay area as well as numerous uncommon to rare sightings. Each kayak tour gave participants the chance to see and compare all the herons and egrets that inhabit the saltmarshes of Barnegat Bay. Each tour there were juvenile Little Blue Herons, which are all white, and the later tours had Black-crowned Night Herons. More than once we got to see beautiful and not too common shorebirds like Whimbrels and Marbled Godwits along with the much more common sandpipers and plovers. Other great shorebirds seen on the BBK trips were Pectoral Sandpipers and a Solitary Sandpiper. We even had a Caspian Tern amongst the Royal Terns. It seems that Ospreys were even more abundant this year than last year, with plenty of hatch year juveniles around in late July and August. Also, American Oystercatchers seemed unusually abundant this year.
The bird walks also produced some exciting and uncommon birds. Least Terns seemed to be in pretty high numbers in August. Also we had multiple Black Tern sightings in and around the inlet area. One of the best finds was a group of 8 Common Eiders that decided not to migrate to their arctic breeding grounds and just stay in Island Beach for the summer. We also had 1 single Piping Plover feeding amongst the Sanderlings and Semipalmated Plovers on the shoreline. That was only the second Piping Plover I have ever seen at IBSP in my life. So all in all, it was a very successful season with very successful tours and each participant walked away with a greater appreciation of the magnificent birdlife that relies on the Barnegat Bay area for their survival.
The 2010 New Jersey bald eagle nesting season has ended and the young eagles have left their nest areas and are heading out on their own. This season there was a high of 94 eagle pairs being monitored. Eighty-two of these pairs were active (laid eggs), 8 were territorial and it was unknown if and where 4 other pairs were nesting. Thirteen new pairs of eagles were located this season. Good news, the bald eagle population is increasing.
Forty-three nests were successful in producing 69 young, for a productivity rate of .84 young per active nest. This is slightly below the required range of 0.9-1.1 young per nest for population maintenance. Unfortunately there were 32 nests which failed to produce young this season. Many of the failures can be attributed to the severe winter and spring weather which coincided with the eagle nesting season. But every population has fluctuations so this one off season won’t effect the NJ eagle population in the long term.
More details will be available in the Annual Bald Eagle Project report which will be out by the end of the year.
Fall migration is underway! Ospreys are headed south for the winter. Juveniles will spend the next two years in their wintering areas in northern South America. Rob Bierregaard, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte has been tracking ospreys from Martha’s Vineyard since 2000. Currently twelve ospreys are fitted with satellite transmitters. Rob uses the data to study migration patterns and the local dispersal of juvenile and adult ospreys. Check out maps from this seasons birds by clicking here. A great place to view ospreys as they travel south is at Cape May Point State Park. Go after a cold front has passed and you should see high numbers of raptors including ospreys on migration.
Red knots, black belly plovers, dunlin, and ruddy turnstones are beginning to show up on beaches along the coastline. Many hop-scotch their way south to their wintering grounds in South America. Great places to view them include Brigantine Inlet, Avalon, Stone Harbor Point, and North Wildwood. Many of these shorebirds are banded with an alpha-numeric color band. If you have a high power spotting scope, then you should be able to read the band. You can contribute your sightings to the International Shorebird Project by submitting your sightings.
Another great website that tracks avian (bird) migration patterns over New Jersey is www.woodcreeper.com. It is run by David La Puma who uses Doppler radar to track movements of birds as they take off on migration, most at night. He is predicting that a large number of birds will take off Wednesday night/Thursday morning after a cold front with winds that prevail from the north passes through. He expects large numbers of migrants to arrive here to “rest and refuel” on Thursday/Friday. Check out this cool graphic of some Doppler radar where you can see birds moving behind the passing cold front (with precipitation).
Get out this weekend and enjoy the beautiful fall weather and watch some of the amazing natural events that take place in New Jersey. Learn key locations to view wildlife by visiting our wildlife viewing map.
Ospreys are currently listed as a threatened species in New Jersey. They were first listed as endangered in 1974 after the state population declined to only 50 pairs, from over 500 prior to 1950. Ospreys have made a remarkable recovery in New Jersey thanks to biologists with the Endangered and Nongame Species Program (ENSP) and many volunteers. Surveys that help monitor the population were conducted in late June and early July.
Volunteers and biologists surveyed all major nesting colonies from Sandy Hook south along the Atlantic Coast to Cape May and west to Salem County. Ospreys almost exclusively nest on man-made structures including platforms designed specifically for them, cell towers, duck blinds, channel markers, and boat lifts. Surveyors visited these nest structures to observe whether or not they were occupied. If they’re occupied, then the number of young were recorded and the young were banded for future tracking with a USGS bird band. Preliminary results show that productivity rates are up for all nesting colonies except one (Sedge Island WMA). Since ospreys are predators, they are at the top of the food chain. They are considered to be an indicator species, or a species that is sensitive to changes in environmental conditions and can serve as an indicator of an unhealthy marine ecosystem. Basically, a healthy osprey population means a healthy marine ecosystem.
The climate during this summer has been the complete opposite as last year. It was hot, dry, and calm, with only a few severe storms with high winds that caused some nests to fail. Otherwise, fish stocks are plentiful, especially menhaden. This year many out-of-state commercial fishing boats have started fishing for bunker off New Jersey waters. This is mostly due to declines in herring stocks in New England and the high demand for bait for use in lobster pots. State legislators have introduced a bill that would limit boats from catching bunker for use as bait. Read more here and this press release from the Recreational Fishing Alliance.
Full results from this years survey will be published soon in our annual newsletter. Here is last year’s newsletter.
Open to all 5th graders throughout New Jersey, the very popular Species on the Edge Art & Essay
