Audubon staff survey newly ’discovered’ wintering grounds in the Bahamas

This winter, National Audubon Society staff from the Atlantic Flyway, including Audubon Alliance staff member Corrie Folsom-O’Keefe, pitched in to locate additional sites important to Piping Plover and other shorebirds in the Bahamas.

From Jan 14th – Jan 20th, Corrie joined Denny Moore of the Bahamas National Trust to survey the cays at the east end of Grand Bahama Island. The pair traveled by flat bottom skiffs and on foot, inventorying shorebirds and other waterbirds on mudflats and along the edges of mangrove islands. The data not only increases our knowledge of shorebird wintering habitat but also will be used by the Bahamas National Trust to determine whether the area should be designated as a National Park.

Until very recently little was known about the locations used by Piping Plover in winter. The 2006 discovery of 400 Piping Plovers in the Bahamas by Audubon and the Bahamas National Trust triggered a closer look at the nation’s 700 islands and roughly 2,000 cays. During a 2011 census, researchers found over 1,000 Piping Plovers--perhaps 20% of the entire Atlantic Coast population--concentrated in one small cluster of Bahamian islands--Andros Island, the Joulter Cays (now a globally Important Bird Area), and the Berry Islands. The census filled in a huge gap in our understanding of these engaging and imperiled birds.

Folsom-O'Keefe said of the experience, “Surveying for shorebirds on their wintering grounds in East Grand Bahama was an awesome opportunity and I look forward to sharing my stories while on the beaches of CT this summer. Over the course of the five days we spend in East Grand Bahama, Denny and I were able to locate 526 Short-billed Dowitcher (possibly enough to qualify the area as a continentally Important Bird Area), 276 Least Sandpipers, 148 Semipalmated Plover, 50 Sanderling, approximately 75 Black-bellied Plover, 20 Ruddy Turnstone, 12 American Oystercatchers, between 7-14 Piping Plover, and 6 Wilson’s Plover." They also documented a Brown Pelican nesting colony, three Double-crested Cormorant nesting colonies, and the presence of Magnificent Frigatebird and Common Merganser."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began monitoring Piping Plovers in Connecticut in 1986 when the species received protection under the Endangered Species Act. The CT DEEP Wildlife Division added their expertise with the passing of the Connecticut Endangered Species Act in 1989. Audubon Connecticut and the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds joined the USFWS and the Wildlife Division and with the help of an amazing group of volunteers that have been stewarding Piping Plovers and other beach-nesting birds along the CT shoreline since 2012.

Working together, staff, field technicians, and volunteers exclose nests, protecting them from predators; put up string fencing to reduce disturbance in nesting areas; and engage beachgoers and municipalities through providing information about beach-nesting species, the threats they face, and how to help. Through these efforts, the number of pairs of Piping Plover nesting in the state has slowly increased.