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Telemetry Research:
Long-tailed Ducks
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Long-tailed Duck. Photo courtesy Wolfgang Wander, Wikimedia. (View full size image on Wikimedia) |
Nantucket Sound is the winter home of hundreds of thousands of sea ducks, particularly Long-tailed Duck, all three North American scoters, and Common Eider.
The Cape Wind energy project proposes to put 130 wind turbines in the Sound on Horseshoe Shoal. As part of the environmental review, Mass Audubon has been studying waterfowl use of the area.
Beginning in winter 2007-2008, Mass Audubon staff in partnership with USGS have used satellite telemetry to gather information on nighttime roosting locations for Long-tailed Duck (LTDU) (Clangula hyemalis), especially with respect to Horseshoe Shoal.
Hundreds of thousands of LTDUs overwinter in Nantucket Sound. These LTDU display commuting behavior: each day at dawn, thousands of LTDU exit the Sound traveling to feeding sites on Nantucket Shoals, returning to the Sound at dusk.
Mass Audubon staff have conducted extensive aerial surveys of the Sound during daylight hours when the vast majority of LTDUs are absent from the Sound. Previously there was little direct information available regarding the nighttime roosting locations of LTDUs, especially in relation to Horseshoe Shoal.
Ducks take to the sky at sunset. Photo copyright Vernon Laux.
In particular, we needed to know whether Horseshoe Shoal is used by significant numbers of LTDUs as a nighttime roosting site or staging area as they exit or return to the Sound. If the answer to this question is yes, then the LTDUs are potentially at risk of collision with wind turbines when the ducks enter, exit, or otherwise move within the project area.
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Long-tailed duck with a transmitter.Photo courtesy Matthew Perry, USGS. |
We surgically implanted satellite transmitters into ten LTDUs and recorded locations in and around Nantucket Sound until the instrumented ducks departed the Sound in mid-April.
Details of the Long-tailed Duck research:
LTDU research information from USGS
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