Lessons Learned from a Summer of Banding American Oystercatchers

by Emmy Casper, Wildlife Biologist

CWF Wildlife Biologist Emmy Casper handling an oystercatcher chick captured for banding. Picture courtesy of Northside Jim

Those who have followed CWF’s work throughout the years know how important bird banding can be for wildlife biologists and conservationists. The practice, which involves placing metal and/or color bands on a bird’s legs, can provide useful information about that bird’s life history, site fidelity, and movement. Typically, banded shorebirds are equipped with a unique alphanumeric code or color combination (kind of like a name tag), which enables scientists to track an individual bird throughout its lifetime. For those monitoring New Jersey’s beach-nesting bird populations, bird banding greatly enhances the quality and accuracy of our productivity data, which allows us to make better-informed decisions regarding management. 

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Staff Spotlight

Emmy Casper, Wildlife Biologist

Emmy Casper, Wildlife Biologist

Emmy grew up on the Jersey Shore, where she developed a strong passion for coastal wildlife conservation. In 2020 she joined CWF as a beach-nesting bird technician and spent three seasons monitoring populations of piping plovers, American oystercatchers, and colonial bird species at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. During her third season, she served as the crew leader and helped lead the first official season of bird monitoring on Horseshoe Island. Since joining the full-time staff in 2022, Emmy has traded the Atlantic Coast for the Delaware Bayshore, where she manages CWF’s new American oystercatcher and salt marsh restoration projects. She holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Biology from Fordham University, where she conducted her thesis on the molecular analysis of shorebird diet during spring migration in Jamaica Bay.

What’s your favorite species and why?

It’s almost impossible to choose, but piping plovers are so special to me. They jump-started my career in conservation, and their resilience in the face of many challenges inspires me to persevere in my own life.

What’s the most surprising or unusual thing that has happened to you while doing field work?

I was pretty flabbergasted when a piping plover pair laid a seven-egg nest during my first field season at Holgate. The pair’s original four-egg nest had been flooded, so we re-assembled it with the hope that the birds would resume incubating the eggs. Instead, the pair decided to lay three new eggs in the same nest! Unfortunately, the eggs were depredated before they could hatch, but I think a brood with 7+ chicks would have been a sight to behold.

Proof of the 7-egger plover nest
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How to Advocate for Beach-nesting Birds During the Holiday Weekends

By Sherry Tirgrath, Wildlife Biologist

As we approach the official, and unofficial, beginning of summer, many warm-weather loving citizens of New Jersey are pulling out their swimwear, purchasing their SPF and preparing to flock to the Jersey Shore and contribute to some of the worst traffic seen around the country. It’s important, however, to take a step back and remind oneself to be certain that their beach activities will not affect the livelihood of other creatures that are just trying to survive in the only habitat that can support them. Both Memorial Day Weekend and July 4th holidays occur during the season that beach-nesting birds are incubating eggs and raising chicks. This makes for some conflict between beachgoers and coastal wildlife, so it’s necessary to bring more awareness to the presence of the birds and the importance of giving them space.

Beach-nesting birds are called just that because they depend on undisturbed, sparsely vegetated, and stabile coastline to breed, lay eggs, and raise their young. They nest directly in the sand and their eggs are sand-colored and camouflaged against predators. This also makes them difficult for people to see, and without proper monitoring and protection measures, they can wind up being run over or stepped on. Small chicks, like those of the piping plover, are tiny and very mobile shortly after hatching. While the parents do their best at corralling their chicks and keeping them away from people, sometimes the chicks wind up under a beachgoer’s umbrella seeking shade or wandering too close to potential danger. Anyone with small children would understand the difficulty in keeping their kids from running off somewhere they’re not supposed to go, especially when they can have up to four of them at once. The chicks must forage to feed themselves, so being very mobile increases the likelihood of them finding small invertebrates to eat.

Piping plover chicks are small but very mobile, allowing them to begin foraging shortly after hatching.
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