Webbed Blog, Live from Coastal Waterbird Central

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)

 

Plover arrival!

Thanks to trusty Massbird, I see that John and Audrey Hoye have reported the first of the year piping plovers at Race Point, Provincetown! Thanks for the report, observant birders. Once again, I found myself indoors on a beautiful almost-spring day of first-of-the-year species arrival, this time at the Cape Cod Natural History Conference. No regrets, though - it's an excellent annual event put on by Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary - a great series of talks on everything from piping plovers to horseshoe crabs.

I headed to a couple Nantucket Sound-side beaches today to try to make up for lost time, but no piping plovers to be found. The first CWP seasonal staffers are coming on board next week, so if we can just get last year's reporting and newsletter done, continue to inventory and gear up for the field season, we'll be in decent shape...

Male piping plover "high-stepping" tracks and female tracks behind. Scott Hecker photo.

Soon we'll be looking for signs in the sand... footprints are often the only evidence we have of their arrival and territorial intentions. Delicate footprints and sounds of subtle peeping. Signs of spring: either dreary and haunting or songs of rejoicing? Thoreau captured this image and the importance of perception in his book Cape Cod, first published in 1865:

"But if I were required to name a sound, the remembrance of which most perfectly revives the impression which the beach has made, it would be the dreary peep of the piping plover (Charadrius melodus) which haunts there. Their voices, too, are heard as a fugacious part in the dirge which is ever played along the shore for those mariners who have been lost in the deep since first it was created. But through all this dreariness we seemed to have a pure and unqualified strain of eternal melody, for always the same strain which is a dirge to one household is a morning song of rejoicing to another."

Snow...plovers?

Piping plover chick on the beach, photo copyright Jim Fenton.

It's March 2nd… uncomfortably close to the earliest date piping plovers have returned to their breeding beaches in Massachusetts. But at the moment, it is hard to imagine thinking about beaches, beach nesting birds, or any other signs of spring. Snow, snow, and more snow!

We can only hope it’ll keep the birds on their southern wintering beaches just a bit longer. If I were a piping plover, I would be dismayed with the situation I might find upon arrival in MA right now. Several inches of snow, 40+ mph winds. Really, I recommend extending the vacation in Florida just a little longer.

We’re not ready… not even close. There's data from last season to be audited, compiled, written up, 25+ seasonal staff to interview, reference check, and hire, letters to landowners to write, field gear to inventory and electric fencing to test, a boat to rehabilitate/buy, a mooring to put in, blinds to build, reports to write, proposals to submit, a newsletter to put together and mail.

Panic sets in in early January, when Ellen (Assistant Director) and I realize we will never get the off-season “break” we dreamt about last field season. The feeling of being “on call” starts late March and lasts through late September, and we’re OK with this. We signed up for this. It comes with the territory, and whenever we're feeling run-down, we remind ourselves that 1) we get to work outdoors much of the year, often on beaches, and 2) our work sometimes “makes a difference” — we protect 15% of the population of a threatened species!

I’m still hoping that these birds stay away, at least for a few more weeks. It’s unlikely, though. Like clockwork, the plovers return. Soon after arrival, males start setting up territories, high-stepping and scraping, and generally carrying on like it’s really Spring. It often doesn’t feel like Spring, but because eggs could be laid as early as early April, we try to get protective fencing up on beaches by April 1 (according to State and Federal Endangered Species Act guidelines).

There’s a lot to do, but an extreme feeling of dread is balanced with a nice hint of anticipation. A new field season is like a blank slate. Anything is possible, and we can only hope we’re able to do everything we can to usher many new avian lives into the world

Becky Harris
Director, Coastal Waterbird Program