Webbed Blog, Live from Coastal Waterbird Central

Transition Time

As hard as it is for me to admit, it's very likely that this is my last post as CWP Director. Piping plovers are beginning to arrive, seasonal staff are coming on board, and the first American oystercatchers have been in MA for at least a week now. But rather than gearing up for my sixth field season with the Coastal Watebird Program, I am retreating... thinking about how different my spring and summer will look. There has been a lot to do to get to this point (budgets, proposals, reports), but while I'd normally be working with Ellen and sanctuary directors to think about where and when we're going to erect fencing, how much gear we need to buy, who we're hiring and where they're going to live, now my thought process is starting to be very different. There's a piece of my brain that's stepping away from the stress to actually imagine the blank slate that is my upcoming spring and summer. I'm even letting myself think about the prospect of having time to go birding and to the beach... just for FUN!

 
Trusty AmeriCorps Cape Cod members helping with early season fencing last year on Dead Neck Sampsons Island... soon they'll be back - thank you, AmeriCorps!

I've been told not to use the cliched phrase 'mixed emotions,' but I do have a swirling pot of feelings in the pit of my stomach at the prospect of leaving. A glimmer of excitement at the thought of a true summer stretching before me as it hasn't since I was a kid. A pang of regret that I'm giving up my 'dream job' to focus on raising my own chick. A surge of panic that I'm abandoning what has been the most all-consuming, rewarding, and challenging job I'm sure I'll probably ever have. A twinge of fear that the people I'm leaving behind will be sucked into a stressful vortex of the field season and that I'm being selfish by sneaking away at this inopportune time.

But I know that they will carry on without me, just as they did when I had my daughter mid-tern census last June. Soon there will be American oystercatchers scraping, piping plovers high-stepping, and the mad scramble to erect protective fencing so that the first eggs (early April!) don't get stepped on and birds aren't scared off from their prospective nesting grounds. The cycle will continue, and the recovery of these species will go on without me. Like so many mothers, I felt that I couldn't let a moment of my own daughter's early life go on without me, and I'm lucky enough (or delusional enough) that I think we can make it work without two full incomes, at least for a little while.

 
My daughter and walking in the woods behind our house. We'll be doing lots of this on beaches this spring/summer.

A piping plover chick will fledge in about 0.4% of the time it takes a human to "fledge" (that is, assuming they leave the nest at age 18... a big assumption, especially with the parental commitment that college can entail!). Our human young are altricial in the extreme (in bird terms - the helpless, naked, "feed me" type of baby bird), while piping plovers are the epitome of precocial (the chicks can walk miles within a few days of life and find all of their own food!). This extreme neediness of my own chick was definitely a factor in my decision to focus on her rather than my other "offspring" and my career (although this job is so much more than just a 'career').

Although it was a tough choice, I can rest easy knowing that my successor has much bigger shoes than mine. When I found out she had accepted, a breathed a huge sigh of relief - the birds, all of our hard work to build the program, everything - will be in very very good hands. I can barely believe it, but Kathy Parsons is the "new me." I can think of no one more incredibly qualified, and I'm humbled even to hold the same position as she. She's the incoming President of the Waterbirds Society, has over 20 years of experience at Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences (a great partner on our recent American oystercatcher work), and is pretty much the person that everyone in this region thinks of when they think waterbirds - especially wading birds (herons and egrets). She has done some fascinating research on these birds over the years, and I am so excited that she brings her dedication, perspective and devotion to coastal bird conservation to Mass Audubon.

I want to extend my thanks to Mass Audubon for giving me the opportunity to do this work for the past nearly 5 years, and most especially to Ellen, the Assistant Director, who is the heart and soul of the Coastal Waterbird Program, and from whom I learned everything I know about piping plovers, and so much more. I'm not saying goodbye... just "see you on the beach."

Massachusetts and Its International Connections... Part Three: Bahamas!

Ellen, Assistant Director of CWP wrote this post just before she took off for the Bahamas yesterday:

We have often wondered what “our” Piping Plovers do during the winter and what challenges they might face when they are not on the breeding grounds. Until recently, there was only a lot of speculation about where MA plovers spent the majority of their life cycle.  Of course, thanks to Dr. Cheri Gratto-Trevor’s work (see October and April 2010 blog entries), we now know that at least 14 of the breeding MA Piping Plovers wintered in the Bahamas in 2009-2010, and in fact, many of our Piping Plovers are in reality, truly “Bahamas Birds”—where they spend 8+ months of the year. 

  Because of Canadian Wildlife Service banding efforts in the Bahamas last winter, we know that at least 14 Piping Plovers that bred in MA, wintered in the Bahamas. CWP staff and other collaborators are on their way to Grand Bahama to see if they can spot "our" birds - for example breeders from Aquinnah, MV and South Beach, Chatham.

So, it is with great excitement and anticipation that I head off to the Bahamas with Gabrielle and Edie (also Coastal Waterbird Program staff, who are volunteering with this project) to participate in the International Piping Plover census of 2011.  The international census, conducted every 5 years, is a collaborative effort between US Geological Survey, Bahamas National Trust, and National Audubon Society, as well as many, many volunteers from the Bahamas, US, and Canada.  We’re off to Grand Bahama first, where we will very likely see some of the birds that were nesting here just months ago (including individuals that had been banded on Grand Bahama a year ago, that nested on Dogfish Bar, Aquinnah and South Beach, Chatham). After that it’s off to the Abacos, most of which have not been surveyed for Piping Plovers in past International Survey efforts.  Their hope is to census well over 200 miles of coastline between the two islands with the help and support of Bahamians and other biologists. We’ll be doing a lot of walking.

Recently, a former staff member that now works on wintering plovers in other parts of the US, said she was just starting to see the wintering plovers change over into their breeding plumage and how amazing and telling it was to see an entire year in the life cycle of a Piping Plover.  That’s something we’re looking forward to as well—the kind of learning that can only take place in the field, and can only increase our understanding of how best to conserve these birds and the coastal habitats in which they reside.

Mass Audubon has always had a connection to the world outside of Massachusetts (see http://www.massaudubon.org/Global_Conservation/index.php), protecting “Massachusetts birds” involves a broader approach because over 70 percent of them spend time elsewhere, and Piping Plovers are no different!  We are thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in the census, learn about the good work being done outside of our own country, and most of all, form new partnerships and friendships with other conservation organizations and people with a shared vision for a species for which we collectively have a great responsibility.

The Nova Scotia-Massachusetts Roseate Tern Connection, part two

Ellen, Assistant Director of CWP, wrote today’s blog as we close out 2010. She recounts her incredible experience 120 miles offshore in the middle of the north Atlantic on Sable Island, Nova Scotia!

On July 29, 2010, I received an email from Julie McKnight, biologist at Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) with Environment Canada.  Amongst other items we were discussing for our collaborative Roseate Tern research, Julie wrote “I have a seat available on my trip to Sable Island if anyone is interested in tagging along?”  This is something I did not have to think about.  Kind of like looking at five birds and knowing it’s five without having to count them.  Going to Sable was something I had wanted to do all my life—well at least since I’ve known of its existence.  My fascination with barrier beaches and their ecology began while working at Monomoy 10 years ago—I distinctly remember my friend Shannon, who I worked for at the time, calling me over to look at a computer program called “Terra-server” (think old-school Google Earth) and she said “Look at this, it looks just like Monomoy!”  We both tried to imagine what it was like on the ground: a 32 mile barrier beach, 120 miles offshore, without any development except for a few buildings, and of course with wild ponies that have been there for hundreds of years. 

 
Coming in to land at Sable Island, view above western portion of the island.  Photo by E. Jedrey

 

So in truth, going to Sable was a real dream come true for me, as hokey as that may sound, and despite the fact that this trip was part of my job.  That’s one of the benefits of doing what you love.  Not to mention the information we stood to gain regarding Roseate, Common and Arctic Tern use of the site during the post-breeding period was also a really big deal too!

So, thanks to CWS, Mass Audubon, and Parks Canada, Julie, Sarah Chisholm and I arrived on Sable Island via a small twin-engine aircraft-landing on the beach after flying 120 miles over the ocean at a few thousand feet - what an experience that was, particularly for someone who now completely hates to fly - but I did love being up there despite the feeling of complete nausea most of the way.  In total, we had five amazing days on Sable Island, and what we found caused me to do an embarrassing, involuntary happy dance on the very first site visit, August 20 at 5:30 pm:  a colorbanded adult Roseate Tern known to have bred on Ram Island, Mattapoisett, MA in 2010 and Bird Island, Marion, MA in 2009! It was one out of only four adult Roseate Terns and one fledgling Roseate seen amongst a group of 500 terns, which were on the far western end of Sable Island.  

Jeff Spendelow (from USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, who banded the bird), Becky and our crew had seen this bird many times in 2009 on Cape Cod, the first year it was banded when it bred on Bird Island, Marion.  It was seen on the outer Cape on seven different days at a total of five different sites over a period of 57 days, from July 20 – September 16, 2009. 

 

 
Flock of terns and gray seals at the west end of Sable Island.  Photo by E. Jedrey

We saw the colorbanded adult again three times over the next four days at Sable; and I immediately wrote to Jeff that he owed me a bag of rootbeer barrels (we had made a bet about whether I’d see any colorbanded Rosies out there).  So, our big question: was this adult Roseate Tern doing something very different during 2009 compared to 2010 in the post-breeding season?  Unfortunately we don’t know whether the bird was on Cape Cod much during the 2010 season because we didn’t have the full army of post-breeding staff out there.  BUT, we do know that was seen twice on July 9^th on Nantucket AND it made a journey of at least 565 miles to the northeast from its breeding site to Sable, prior to the time when it would depart for a roughly 4000 mile journey south to the coast of Brazil.  Why would this tern fly so far north before departing to the south?  A strong sustained SW wind was indicated by the northeast channel buoy on August 17-18; could this have played a part?  Was it here for the food?  Was it just “lost” or wandering, or did it grow tired along the way?  And were there other Roseate Terns here, perhaps earlier, that we just missed?  For example, once again, the first sightings of the colorbanded fledglings from Country Island, Nova Scotia, appeared on Cape Cod on Aug 14, just after the first sustained NE wind in many months.  Or, is it possible that Sable Island represents an important resting location for birds that travel many miles to find good foraging habitat?

The really big question isn’t so much why we saw one bird in two locations that were far apart in human terms (but perhaps not for a bird) and however “cool” that might be to us; it’s the understanding of migratory patterns that is essential to better protect and conserve these birds for the future.  Roseates are declining throughout their range in the northwest Atlantic, at a rate of -8% year, and we don’t know why.  Jeff’s data have shown that it’s probably not something that is going on at the breeding sites—instead, it’s during migration or the wintering season.  Seeing this bird at Sable, and the fact that it may have made a significant change in its behavior in 2010, or that it could be making 565 mi transits while “staging” on Cape Cod—either way, it’s a significant use of energy and could mean a few different things:  terns are traveling long distances to find good foraging habitat and spending a lot of energy to do so, terns can get lost and/or tired when they’re out to sea and Sable could be an important resting location for the weary, or perhaps 2010 was just a “fluke” and maybe this was this tern’s only visit to Sable in its lifetime.  Hopefully next year, after further analysis of our data, we will have more to share with you.

 

  Julie and Ellen scanning a flock of Common, Roseate and Arctic Terns on Sable Island.  Photo by Sarah Chisholm.

One last note, another “cool” observation though we don’t completely understand the meaning—we saw a juvenile Arctic Tern banded by our colleagues at Project Puffin in the Gulf of Maine, from Seal Island NWR, 430 miles directly west of Sable Island.

 
Banded juvenile Arctic Tern seen at the west end of Sable Island, that hatched in 2010 on Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge, Vinalhaven, ME.  Photo by E. Jedrey.

 

 
Looking across from north to south on the middle of Sable Island, from on top of one of the highest dunes on the site.  Photo by Sarah Chisholm.

 

 
A flock of terns (over 2000) comes in at sunset; though we heard Roseates, we were unable to see well enough to tell if any were banded. E. Jedrey photo.

 

 
The Sable Island ponies.  Photo by Julie McKnight.

 

 
Ellen’s idea of the perfect place:  east tip of Sable Island.  Photo by Julie McKnight.

Chick of My Own and Oystercatcher Oedipus

Back in March when I was pregnant I wrote a blog post about how I could start to empathize with plover mothers’ protective drive. But I had no idea. I had no idea the extent of the devotion and all-consuming love until my daughter actually hatched. She joined the ranks of the many plover, tern and oystercatcher chicks in June (and actually almost literally joined them, when my water broke after completing a tern census on Winthrop Beach!).

 
Abbie in her natural habitat - by the water.

They say it changes your life, but it’s really hard to comprehend how (and how that change is overwhelmingly positive), until you actually go through it. So I spent the summer really not thinking about birds at all, which was a BIG change for me. Now that I’m back at work part-time and I look back on the season, I’m so appreciative of all the hard work of all the staff. I'm especially thankful for Ellen, Assistant Director of CWP, who typically runs around all season doing at least 3 people’s jobs and this season she did mine too! We were extremely lucky to have several wonderful returning CWP seasonal staffers this year.

Apparently no one (especially not the birds) missed me too much, because it was a great season for piping plovers (mostly due to good weather, so hopefully we can’t attribute the success to my absence). On the 87 sites that CWP managed (out of a total of 144 censused) this year, 254 pairs of piping plovers produced at least 328 fledglings (1.29 fledglings/pair), 47 pairs of American oystercatchers produced at least 33 fledglings (from 35 pairs with known fates, for a record-breaking productivity for this species of 0.94 chicks fledged/pair).

There were some stand-outs in the Piping Plover world: for example, 20 fledglings produced from 6 pairs on East Sandwich Beach, and 17 fledglings from 8 pairs in Revere and Winthrop! One of the most exciting aspects of this season was our discovery of 9 colorbanded piping plovers that wintered (and were banded) in the Bahamas and bred on sites we monitored. A total of 14 banded plovers were spotted in MA (the highest number of any state), with a total of 40 out of the 57 banded found somewhere on the Atlantic coast this summer (70% recovery rate)! Amazingly enough, at least 13 of these birds have already been seen back in the Bahamas (including 2 from MA), so we can feel a small sense of relief that at least these plovers are not wintering in the Gulf of Mexico. One of these birds was last seen on its nesting site on South Beach, Chatham by CWP staff on July 20^th, only to return to the spot it was banded the previous winter on Discovery Beach, Bahamas, spotted by August 18^th. We learned a great deal about movements and nesting and wintering site fidelity from even this small scale banding project; many thanks go to Environment Canada for this exciting project led by Dr. Cheri Gratto-Trevor of the Canadian Wildlife Service. More details to come.

 
Banded piping plover - the "original" first seen back in April in Harwich, fledged two chicks from its second nest attempt, after a red fox dug under the exclosure put around the first nest. Ben Carroll photo.

But it was the fascinating lives of American oystercatchers that, well… shocked us this year. When we first noticed that Yellow H8 switched mates (and sites) mid-season, we thought it was a fun story. This bird (believed to be male based on courtship behavior) was seen in early April at Bourne’s Pond in Falmouth with Yellow HO, three days later in Sippewissett Marsh (Falmouth) without its mate, the next day, scraping (precursor to nesting) on Dead Neck Sampsons Island (Barnstable) with a different, unbanded mate.  But by the middle of May H8 had a 2-egg nest… with Yellow HO, the original mate, seen together back in April in Falmouth. This time they were nesting on a beach in Tisbury, Martha’s Vineyard. Then we looked up their histories, only to discover that H8 was the offspring of HO!! Oh boy. As far as I know, this kind of Oedipal behavior hasn’t been reported in oystercatchers before… but it could happen a lot more than we know. We’re only just beginning to uncover the interesting stories, thanks to an Atlantic coastwide banding effort, led in Massachusetts by Sean Murphy, at the time, a PhD student at City University of New York.

Also interesting to note, the year before, H8 had nested as a three-year-old with an unbanded mate on Dead Neck Sampson’s and HO nested on a different Vineyard beach in Oak Bluffs, the very one where it had raised H8 in 2006. HO nested on this Oak Bluffs site every year, from 2006-2009. Funny thing was, after their Tisbury nest failed this year, HO and H8 were seen back on their old stomping grounds in Oak Bluffs, harassing the territorial pair that had taken over the site this year (they didn’t succeed and we didn’t see them again this season)! There’s more to this fascinating story, and I’ll have to save it for another post.

 
CWP staffer, Cate Strang on Nantucket, banding an oystercatcher chick this season. Edie Ray photo.

We’re excited to be part of a cooperative project partially funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, increasing our focus on American oystercatchers, finding interesting tidbits like this one. We also discovered “new” pairs that had previously been unmonitored, particularly in Buzzards Bay (8 newly discovered pairs fledged 10 chicks this year!). We helped collaborators from Manomet, USFWS, and City University of New York band 101 oystercatchers, adding to the understanding of the entire Atlantic coast population’s survival and movement patterns, including where these birds spend the winter (many in the Gulf of Mexico, unfortunately).

A week ago we hosted over 40 biologists from Texas to Massachusetts at the annual American Oystercatcher Working Group Meeting at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary – the first time in 10 years that the meeting has been held north of NJ! It was a very successful meeting, with a lot of great discussion about how to move forward with conservation of this charismatic and poorly understood species, as well as a ton of good mostly local food provided by some extremely generous donors!

Many thanks for donated or low-cost goods go to:

Cape Cod Organic Farm (Barnstable), Nirvana Coffee Co. (Barnstable), Marion’s Pies (Chatham), Kurt Martin (Chatham), Underground Bakery (Dennis), East Dennis Oyster Farm, Fleming’s Donut Shack (Eastham), Whole Foods (Hingham, Pan D’Avignon (Hyannis), Trader Joe’s (Hyannis), Shaw’s (Hyannis), Stop and Shop (Hyannis), Truro Vineyards, Angel Foods (Provincetown), Far Land Provisions (Provincetown)

 

The winds have shifted - end of season 2010

Another season has come and gone — and as always, it was busy and went by very quickly (apologies for not keeping up with the blog)! For some reason each year, it still comes as a surprise to head out to South Beach, Chatham in early August and not see plovers; and by plovers, of course, I mean Piping Plovers. On August 13, we in Southeastern, MA felt a change in the wind and humidity, and fall suddenly seemed to be here. Jeff saw the first color-banded Canadian Roseate Tern fledgling of the year, who flew at least 770 km from Country Island, Nova Scotia, to reach us on outer Cape Cod. Last year, it was August 14, and the winds shifted about the same time — the first sustained northeast wind in months.

Almost all of the Coastal Waterbird Staff and Colleagues, 2010. Photo by Ben Carroll

August 23 marked the last day of the majority of the Coastal Waterbird Program seasonal staff for 2010. For many it means the excitement and stress of finding a new job opportunity for the fall and winter, for a few it means graduate school (Congratulations Kate, Mo and Ben!), for some it means going back to finish at their universities, and for others it is onward to help with the research effort in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico affected by the oil spill. For the two full-time staff, myself and Becky, it means being able to look back at 2010 as a really fantastic year for Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers on Cape Cod — we know our final productivity estimates are going to be great when the final numbers are completed, especially compared with last year, which was the worst on record.  But most of all, it means saying goodbye to a wonderful group of staff and volunteers who enabled 258 pairs of Piping Plovers, 48 pairs of American Oystercatchers, 861 pairs of Least Terns and 145 pairs of Common Terns a chance to breed and be productive — and they were. Thank you to everyone who contributed to, worked for and volunteered for the Coastal Waterbird Program of Mass Audubon in 2010. Coastal bird conservation does not and will not happen without you.  

Piping Plover/Ben Carroll

Fledging with mixed emotions

Time flies. I find it hard to believe, but the first brood of piping plover chicks that hatched on Winthrop Beach is already due to fledge next week (they'll be 25-days-old and officially fledged according to the state on June 15th, but we'll make sure they can fly at least 50 ft before we rest easy). The brood of oystercatcher chicks nearby is also due to fledge soon (although oystercatchers take at least 35-40 days to be able to fly).

Ted Bradford took this beautiful photo of one of the three American oystercatcher chicks that are almost ready to fledge from Yirrell Beach point in Winthrop. This photo was taken when the chicks were much younger - only a few days old most likely.

The fact that a few broods of plover and oystercatcher chicks are due to fledge next week is cause for celebration - mid-June, and they're already successful and able to escape predators. For those broods of chicks on busy beaches come July 4th, this is what we hope for. They can depart these beaches early and fencing can be taken down on some sites that don't have nests or chicks anymore. Where these first early nest attempts are successful, we avoid the inevitable conflict that comes on the busiest weekends of the summer when bonfires, fireworks, and crowds of people can disturb and even destroy nests and chicks.

So why do I feel an uneasy, slightly queasy feeling when I think about sending "our" chicks off into the world of flighted adulthood? Very simply, the biggest oil spill disaster in the country's history. Although most piping plovers and oystercatchers will remain on local beaches for weeks or months from now, inevitably some will depart for the Gulf Coast and Florida, and there's no way it will be cleaned up in time. We know large concentrations of wintering plovers and oystercatchers spend time all along the Gulf. How do we face the fact that all of our hard-won successes on breeding beaches might be wiped out in an instant, as birds migrate and flock to their familiar beaches, only to find them covered in oil and their invertebrate meals tainted and smothered?

I'm sure many people feel this same horrified, helpless feeling, lying awake at night worrying about the future of this precious ecosystem. I can't even imagine what it's like to be there now, trying to protect the sensitive nesting islands and beaches that are being used by wading birds, pelicans, Wilson's plovers, and so many others. We can't forget how connected we are through our own breeding migratory birds, making the long-term outcome even more nightmarish and enormous in scale. 

One tiny consolation is the knowledge that at least some of "our" plovers and oystercatchers won't go to the Gulf. If they are faithful to their wintering sites, we can only hope that the plovers banded in the Bahamas last winter will return there this winter. We now have 13 Bahamas-banded piping plovers on breeding sites in Massachusetts (Welfleet, Orleans, Chatham, Dennis, Harwich, Aquinnah, Sandwich, and Ipswich). An event like this is a reminder of the value of having banded birds in such an intensively monitored population - 26 total individuals have been identified so far, from North Carolina to Nova Scotia. Knowing these individuals and being able to track them beyond this one year should at least help us assess the impacts of this terrible disaster on the entire threatened population.

This is one of the sites where Peter Doherty and Sidney Maddock banded piping plovers in the Bahamas. Just the kind of flats they love to flock to - we can only hope they'll return and these sites will remain unoiled. Sidney Maddock photo.

  

Chicks!

We have chicks! Oystercatcher chicks (actually for a few weeks now) and as of saturday, May 22, piping plover chicks! Four have hatched from one nest on Winthrop Beach... I think the first in the state. The urban plovers are thriving once again. Sadly the first plover nest in the state (found April 13th) was due to hatch on May 17th, but that day also brought a mini nor'easter that washed away numerous nests, including all four on the beach in Hyannisport where the first nest was due to hatch.And with losses and successes, we start the familiar ups and downs of a beach nesting bird breeding season...

 
Piping plover chicks (not THE chicks, but a couple who are a little older). John Van de Graaff photo.
 

Bahamas-banded Plover has 2-egg nest in Harwich!

Today Ben Carroll (CWP Field Assistant in Chatham/Harwich) found a 2-egg nest laid by the first Bahamas-banded piping plover sighted in MA back in March. She and her mate had been actively courting and scraping up a storm on the same Harwich beach for almost a month... here's a great video clip that Ben took about a week ago of the pair engaged in behavior that was sure to lead to today's find: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjscBQ55jzQ

Fingers crossed, this nest will survive to hatch on about May 28th (assuming about three-four more days to lay a complete clutch of four eggs). It'll likely take some extra effort and assistance in the form of an exclosure dug extra deep. There's a known fox den under a building nearby, and last year the fox dug under the exclosure on hatch day (likely heard the peeping of the chicks as they became active inside/emerging from the eggs).

Now we're up to 7 Bahamas-banded piping plovers on nesting grounds in MA, and an additional 7 in RI, CT, and NY. Keep on looking at plover legs, and keep hoping for a storm-free, predator-free Spring!

First (record-breaking) piping plover nest found in MA!

Today, Nuray Taygan, CWP Crew Leader extraordinaire found the state's first piping plover nest (1 egg so far) of the season. One was found in New Jersey two days ago, and with several warm days in the past few weeks, I guess we shouldn't be surprised... but we were! Usually the first eggs are found on Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket. This one was found on a small beach in Hyannisport (a tribute to Ted Kennedy, perhaps?).

This isn't THE egg, but it's sometimes how cryptic single eggs can appear. Lots of plover tracks, but not much else to make these first eggs easy to find. Ellen Jedrey photo.

This breaks the record for earliest nest ever found in MA by at least four days, and usually most of our first nests on Cape Cod aren't found until the last week of April. Yikes. We have our work cut out for us. We're lucky this year because we had several returning staff who know what they're looking for, and we were able to start them early. But I'm afraid of what could happen in future years if the season starts earlier and earlier and we're not fully staffed and aren't able to get protective fencing up on the 75-100 sites that require it. As funding sources disappear, early staffing gets more and more challenging.

Climate change seems the obvious culprit... it would be interesting to go back in the nesting records to determine if there's a pattern of earlier nesting in recent years (mental note: do this in the off-season). Although early successful nests are positive for birds and people (this nest could hatch before Memorial Day weekend, and the chicks could fledge well before July 4th!), more severe spring storms are another facet of climate change that we've been experiencing in the northeast in recent years, which negates any positive of early nest atempts if washover is more likely. We'll see how this season plays out...with any luck all plover chicks will be fledged by the time i give birth in July (yeah, right!).

Know your plovers!

So far, at least 3 uniquely colorbanded piping plovers have shown up on MA beaches, having been banded in the Bahamas over the winter. The latest sighting was made yesterday by Emily Heiser, CWP Field Assistant on Martha's Vineyard; she spotted the bird (probably male, making nest scrapes for what appeared to be an admiring female) on Dogfish Bar in Aquinnah. Instantly, we know based on the combination of bands on this bird's legs (black flag on upper left / light green over orange on lower left / and white on lower right) that this plover was banded on February 2nd at Cargills Creek, Andros Island by Peter Doherty and Sidney Maddock. So far 5 piping plovers of the 57 banded in the Bahamas this winter have been confirmed on their breeding grounds (3 in MA, 1 in CT, and 1 in NY).

 
First colorbanded plover seen in MA in Harwich on March 27 by Susie Gallagher and Ed Nash. Ben Carroll photo.

The first banded piping plover spotted in MA generated a lot of excitement and press - see Cape Cod Times article: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100330/NEWS/3300307 

Why so much interest in a few birds with colorful bracelets? Partially, it's the information we can gain about their migrations, their movements from site to site, their patterns of distribution on the wintering grounds vs. breeding grounds and so much more about a population that is so small and so vulnerable. But perhaps more immediate and powerful right now, as we discover the first few birds that we can pick out from a crowd, is the simple fact that we humans like to make personal connections with individuals. Anyone who watches piping plovers for long periods of time knows that each one is different, and that they have unique behavioral and even physical characteristics that we can start to identify, but when identified for us in an obvious way, each of these piping plovers becomes a little bit more real to us... we can start to identify with their individual stories.

Will green/orange banded male on Dogfish Bar succeed in his first nest attempt? Where will he renest if he fails? Will he find a new mate? These bands allow us a more clear window into the soap opera that is the frenzied breeding season of the piping plover. They hopefully allow us to create more "personal" connections with individual birds... connections that will enable us to care more deeply about saving the crowd, saving their precarious habitats.

Keep an eye out for colorbands gracing orange piping plover legs wherever you may be. Report all sightings to banding coordinator, Cheri.gratto-trevor "at" ec.gc.ca