BAHAMAS PIPING PLOVER PROJECT

WINTERING PIPING PLOVER SURVEYS ON ABACO

By Todd Pover, Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager and Stephanie Egger, Wildlife Biologist

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The Bahamas piping plover survey tally board in the “central command” room at Schooner Bay Institute.

An integral part of this Bahamas trip entailed surveying several sites not previous covered on Abaco and revisiting some sites not checked since the 2011 International Piping Plover Census. Although we didn’t find large concentrations of piping plovers at any one new site, we did make some noteworthy discoveries.

One of the most exciting find was the resight of a piping plover that was banded on the breeding grounds last summer in Massachusetts as part of a flight behavior study. New Jersey also participated in this research and we briefly thought it might be one of the birds banded in our home state – but it turned out that it was banded (and nested) on Chapin Beach, Cape Cod and is wintering at Schooner Bay, Abaco (amongst 15 other piping plovers found on our survey). Continue reading “BAHAMAS PIPING PLOVER PROJECT”