With Summer Approaching, the Audubon Alliance Asks You to Share the Beach with Piping Plovers, Least Terns and Other Birds

Piping Plover on a Long Island Sound beach. Photo by Sean Graesser/Copyright Connecticut Audubon Society

May 2013 – A team of volunteers will be heading to Connecticut’s beaches starting Memorial Day weekend to monitor nest sites of vulnerable birds and help educate beach-goers about how they can help keep the birds safe.

The volunteers are working with the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds to protect Piping Plovers, Least Terns, Common Terns, American Oystercatchers and other species that nest along the heavily-used beaches and islands of Long Island Sound.

The volunteers will be keeping their eyes on known nest sites, telling visitors why it’s important that they and their dogs stay clear of the nesting areas, and explaining the federal laws designed to protect the birds.

Among other places, the beach monitors will be at Connecticut Audubon Society’s Milford Point Coastal Center, Long Beach in Stratford, Sandy and Morse points in West Haven, Griswold Point in Old Lyme, and Bluff Point State Park in Groton.

A Piping Plover and chick at Milford Point. Photo by Tom and Laura Zawislinski

Piping Plovers are listed as threatened species under both the federal and Connecticut Endangered Species Acts; Least Terns are threatened in Connecticut. Their nesting success in Connecticut has fluctuated over the years, but even in good years they are not abundant.

The Audubon Alliance is a partnership between Audubon Connecticut (the state office of the National Audubon Society) and Connecticut Audubon Society.

Both Audubon organizations have worked extensively to conserve and improve wildlife habitats on Long Island Sound. The Alliance project supports and expands habitat protection efforts by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Coastal Program. The Connecticut DEEP publishes a complete report on the state’s beach-nesting birds, called “From the Shore,” which you can read here. Funding for the Audubon Alliance was provided by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Long Island Sound Futures Fund.

In addition to actively protecting nest sites, the Alliance works to let people know that there is room on Connecticut’s beaches for both people and birds. The goal is to make visitors aware of the presence of the vulnerable birds and to take care not to disturb them.

That’s an important message because not only do plovers and terns nest right on the beach, their nests are difficult to see and therefore easy to step on accidentally.

Piping Plover nests, for example, are little more than depressions scraped into the sand; the eggs look like beach stones. Most known Piping Plover nests are fenced off and marked by signs. But as people, dogs or predators like raccoons approach, incubating adult birds flee the nest to draw attention from it; if they are away for too long, eggs can become too cool or too hot and therefore not viable.

Once young birds leave the nest they range widely. But because they are small, they are vulnerable to being stepped on, killed by dogs, or separated for too long from their parents. Predators can also easily eat recently-fledged young.

Least Terns nest in colonies in remote areas of beaches and sandbars, and like Piping Plovers they are protected by federal and state laws.

It is illegal to kill, injure, harass or otherwise interfere with Piping Plovers, Least Terns and other birds listed as endangered or threatened. Even accidentally stepping on one, or on a nest, requires an investigation and possible legal action by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Audubon Alliance monitors are obligated to report potential offenses to the authorities.

Least Terns in Stratford. Photo by Scott Kruitbosch/Copyright Connecticut Audubon Society.

This year, Piping Plovers are nesting at Sandy Point/Morse Point in West Haven, Milford Point, Bluff Point, and Griswold Point in Old Lyme.

In 2012, 51 pairs of Piping Plovers fledged 60 young in Connecticut. In 2011, 52 pairs of Piping Plovers fledged 71 young in Connecticut. The 52 nests were the highest in the last 22 years but the 71 young represented a drop from 102, 74 and 82 during the three previous years.

In 2012, 350 pairs of Least Terns fledged 165 young.

In 2011, 359 pairs of Least Terns fledged 124 young (high tides associated with storms washed away a number of nests in both years). Overall, the number of Least Tern nests is down from well over 600 two decades ago.