The remote coastal salt marshes of the Delaware Bayshore harbor a unique and seldom observed ecosystem, boasting a rich natural history and diverse wildlife. To help prevent the loss of these valuable habitats and their inhabitants, CWF is participating in a partner-driven, multi-year project led by Ducks Unlimited and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to enhance habitat quality and restore natural hydrology to salt marshes in Delaware and New Jersey. CWF is actively involved in the second season of biological monitoring at select Bayshore salt marshes targeted for restoration efforts designed to revegetate mudflats existing on old salt hay farms (read more about salt hay farming impacts here). At this stage of the project, our role is to gather important pre-restoration data to evaluate the anticipated impact and effectiveness of restoration techniques.
A view from one of our survey points at Dix Wildlife Management Area. Photo courtesy of Emmy Casper, CWF Wildlife Biologist.
On a brisk November morning, a couple dedicated NJ Osprey Project volunteers joined myself and CWF Biologist Larissa Smith to install an osprey platform on the coastal saltmarsh of New Jersey. The new platform was installed to replace a very old and unstable platform that fell this summer. The new structure is more than twice the size of the old one and will give the nesting pair, who return in the spring, a much more resilient nest site. As you can see from the video above, it takes a bit of strength to raise up a 16′ tall wood nest platform. We decided to slow it down when WCC Volunteer, Wayne R. gives it a final push. Continue reading “Video from the Field: Osprey Platform Install”
The threats are real and these photos should alarm you!
by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager
U.S. Coast Guard assists NJ Fish & Wildlife with recovering an entangled osprey on a channel marker in Cape May Harbor, Summer 2018. photo by Kathy Clark/ENSP
We took advantage of the break in cold/wet weather along the southeast coast of New Jersey and installed a new nesting platform for ospreys this week. The new platform was installed for a pair that previously nested on sensitive equipment used by the Rutgers University Marine Field Station on Great Bay Blvd. in Little Egg Harbor. The equipment was located on a short cluster of pilings near the boardwalk to the Station. It failed to produce young in 2013. More than likely it was predated by raccoon, the main ground predator of osprey young.
A large number of volunteers showed up to help out. The actual install was quite easy considering it could be accessed by the land via Great Bay Blvd. The platform was placed along a tidal creek so that biologists can easily access the nest for future surveys. Rutgers staff will install deterrents on the old nest so birds can’t nest there when they return in late March. You can see the location of the nest on Osprey Watch or drive out on GBB to see it in person.
Thank you to all the volunteers who came out to help!
The extreme cold weather in January brought some really neat winter scenery to the coastal saltmarsh. One of the most productive ecosystems in the world is almost totally desolate in the middle of winter. There are still a few signs of life though, which have been captured by our Osprey Cam, including top tiers predators, peregrine falcons, and herbivores, snow geese. There’s no doubt that each plays a role in the ecosystem. The snow geese eat any kind of vegetation that they can find and they consume any part of the plant, seeds, stems, leaves, tubers, and roots. The osprey cam showed them sticking there heads underground to forage on the rhizoidial roots of saltmarsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora). Here’s an interesting fact from Cornell University’s All About Birds website: “Food passes through the Snow Goose’s digestive tract in only an hour or two, generating 6 to 15 droppings per hour. The defecation rate is highest when a goose is grubbing for rhizomes, because such food is very high in fiber and the goose inevitably swallows mud.” Their droppings will no doubt help to fertilize the marsh in the spring!
