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Coastal Waterbird Program: 2009 Season Highlights

Photo by John Van de Graaff

July 27, 2009- One word to describe the summer 2009 season so far: wet! Between heavy winds, nor'easters, and buckets of rain, the survival of Piping Plover, tern, and oystercatcher nests and chicks has been challenged this season.

But a cold, wet June is not all bad for egg and chick survival. They do share their homes with the same sandy beaches that draw crowds on warm, sunny spring days, and some nests may have benefitted from low human disturbance early on this season.

Because Piping Plovers start laying their eggs as early as mid-April (a bit late this season, with first eggs found on April 24 this year), the major storm that hit in late June arrived after many nests had already hatched.

At least 40 plover nests (and many entire Least Tern colonies) out of a total of 390 plover nest attempts by about 255 pairs found by Coastal Waterbird Program (CWP) staff this season, were washed away by this storm.

But many broods of chicks actually made it through the storm, much to our amazement. Piping Plover chicks can't thermoregulate, and rely on their parents to brood them and keep them warm during harsh weather. Many chicks didn't survive this or other threats. However, more than expected did survive.

At this point, at least 179 fledglings are already testing their wings. Even if remaining chicks survive to fledging, it doesn't look like productivity will be much above 1.0 chicks per pair this year. This is not enough to maintain current population levels.

Piping plovers continue to surprise CWP staff this season, nesting on several sites they haven't occupied in recent history. This includes several Harwich Beaches, some of which were recently renourished. Not only did nesting pairs surprise, first by nesting in new spots. But also by rolling their eggs back into nests. Several pairs lost eggs to high tides and washover, only to carefully roll their eggs back into new scrapes. And a few of these eggs actually hatched!

Plover chicks also surprised us in other ways. First, by swimming back and forth across a channel between two beaches (Red River in Harwich and Pleasant St. in Chatham). Second, crossing back and forth across a busy road (Joseph Sylvia State Beach on Martha's Vineyard).

Least Terns were a bit mysterious this year as well. It is common for colonies to shift from site to site each year. They're responding, we believe, to fluctuations in productivity and predation pressure in previous years.

A few of the largest sites we monitor (Little Beach, Edgartown, for example) were entirely devoid of nesting Least Terns this year. Meanwhile, other sites monitored by other organizations saw dramatic increases in nesting populations this year (Norton Point, Edgartown and Kalmus Park, Barnstable, as two examples).

Least Terns are extremely vulnerable to predation from a wide variety of culprits (crows, skunks, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, owls, and opossums). So it's important that a wide variety of site types and locations are available for nesting each year to enable terns to stay one step ahead of their predators.

Come late July and August, CWP staff are beginning to take down signs and symbolic fencing where plover and tern chicks have fledged. We're compiling data and beginning shifting over to a new focus: so-called "staging" behavior of terns. This is the period just after breeding when the birds depart their nesting grounds to spend time resting and feeding their still-dependent fledglings.

This period can last through the end of September, and represents a crucial period in the lives of federally endangered Roseate Terns and state-listed Common Terns before they embark on a long journey to South America. Over 60% of Roseate Terns nesting in Massachusetts are uniquely identifiable by color band combinations, thanks to the efforts of CWP collaborator Dr. Jeff Spendelow of the U.S. Geological Survey Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

The ability to identify individual Roseate Terns allows us to determine movement patterns and habitat use by this endangered species once they enter the most critical period of their lives. We are working with numerous collaborators to identify and protect these critical habitats. It's always exciting to recognize "old friends" when searching for banded terns. Some are over 20 years old, and still going strong!