One Year of Coastal Monitoring

Wood Stork. Photo by Sarah Manning.

By Sarah Manning, Coastal Conservation Coordinator
 
It’s hard to believe that nearly a year has passed since I joined the team at Birds Georgia. In the last year, I’ve delighted in engaging with folks across the coastal counties and sharing Birds Georgia’s mission of building places where birds and people thrive. I’ve had the unique opportunity to participate in monitoring efforts, recruit and engage volunteers, and attend community events where I’ve met amazing people working diligently to conserve birds and their habitats across the state. 
 
While I am not new to the Georgia coast, this past year led me to deepen my connection to the charismatic cohorts of birds that thrive here. As the ebb and flow of fall neotropical migrants turned to the constant chatter of wintering sparrows and shorebirds, the stream of spring migrants gave way to the boisterousness of the breeding season, the subdued late summer lull has given way to the ebb and flow of fall migration yet again. Along the way, I’ve gained a true sense of place that comes with prolonged time spent observing these small changes. Through all the seasons, Birds Georgia conducts bird monitoring to keep a pulse on select populations, responses to habitat restoration, and as a part of new and exciting partnerships and collaborations. 

This spring was my first full ‘season’ of Project Safe Flight monitoring. We have coastal volunteers from Savannah to Saint Marys who regularly walk routes to search for birds who have collided with windows. We retrofitted windows at the Burton 4-H Center Campus on Tybee Island early this year, which will reduce or eliminate collisions for years to come. This spring, we located very few collisions on the coast, which is typical. However, this fall started off busy, with new species for the coastal collision team: Kentucky Warbler, Mourning Dove, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Northern Parula, Red-eyed Vireo on top of the most commonly-collected species, Common Yellowthroat. We are continuing to engage more partners, businesses, and campuses in our monitoring efforts and Lights Out initiative and hope to wrap up another successful glass retrofit by the end of the year. 

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American Oystercatcher. Photo by Sarah Manning.

 
In April, we began our pilot nightjar study using Autonomous Recording Units (ARUs). We recruited landowners through our newly-launched Habitat Stewardship program to conduct research on their working lands. Fifteen units were placed across the state and recorded from May to July in order to detect if nightjars were present. The good news? Chuck-wills-widows were detected at 11 of the 15 sites, Common Nighthawks at four, and Eastern Whip-poor-wills at one site. We also collaborated with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Nightjar Survey Network to complete 18 driving nightjar routes across the state. Does this sound like fun? We look forward to expanding this work in 2025 and will be recruiting volunteers to help us survey the state. 
 
This breeding season was quite the busy one for coastal birds. We monitored two small wading bird rookeries in Camden County. The sounds (and smells) are not easily forgotten. In early spring, the beautifully-plumed Great Egrets strutted and squawked their way through the courtship phase before finding a suitable site for their seemingly haphazard nest construction. Their eggs incubate for nearly a month before hatching and revealing near-helpless young that will not leave for another three weeks or so. By the time these birds fledge, they look nearly identical to their adult counterparts, save a rogue fluffy feather or two. One colony produced nine Great Blue Herons (who nest earlier and prefer to nest away from other wading birds) and the other, a mix of Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Green Herons, Little Blue Herons, night herons, and Western Cattle Egrets. The small colony was guarded by a handful of small alligators… so I did not attempt any close looks and risk meeting their mother. Additionally, we monitored eight nesting pairs of American Oystercatchers on Cumberland Island’s ocean-facing shore. Since most Oystercatchers are fitted with field-readable bands, it allows us to identify unique individuals and determine who is nesting where (they’re also highly territorial). Unfortunately, even with multiple attempts by each pair, all were lost to predators or other natural forces. On the bright side, many Wilson’s Plover pairs and chicks were seen while we did these surveys so it seems that someone had a successful season.​

Piping Plovers on Cumberland Island National Seashore. Photo by Sarah Manning.

 
Throughout all the seasons, we also monitor non-breeding Piping Plovers on Cumberland Island National Seashore with the support of the National Park Service. Beginning in late summer 2023, I was tasked with surveying the migratory and wintering Piping Plovers at Cumberland Island National Seashore. This project has been ongoing for many decades, but after longtime volunteers retired from the responsibility, I (happily!) took over the task. Since then, I have surveyed at least once a month with the assistance of the park staff. While on surveys, we take note of how many Piping Plovers are seen, where they are, any leg bands they have, and any disturbances (e.g. boats, bicycles, predators, dogs) that may be present. This is important because Cumberland Island is home to a wintering cohort of the federally endangered Great Lakes population, in addition to wintering members of the federally threatened Atlantic Coast population. The Great Lakes subspecies recently hit a milestone: there were a total of 81 unique breeding pairs across the region this summer (the most since their Endangered Species Act listing), which is one more than last year’s record of 80 pairs. The recovery goal is to have at least 150 pairs for five consecutive years. During the 16 surveys since August 2023, we’ve seen 511 Piping Plovers on Cumberland Island. The most seen in a single survey was 67 individual Piping Plovers along the 17 miles of ocean-facing beach. Many of these birds were banded with unique color bands and flags, allowing us to know individual birds and track them over time. In the Great Lakes population, each and every bird is banded - since fall 2023, I’ve documented 63 individuals by their unique bands – approximately 20 are from the Atlantic Population and the remainder are from the Great Lakes Population. One of my all-time favorite birds is gabbY: she is named for the colors of her bands (light green, light blue, Yellow). She is the oldest known female Piping Plover and is tied for oldest Piping Plover ever recorded (she hatched in 2009). This year, she successfully fledged two chicks at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore this summer as a 15 year-old! Another cool note? During Birds Georgia’s May 2023 Michigan trip, Conservation Director Adam Betuel and participants were treated to the other side of gabbY’s life: they were treated to views of gabbY nesting at Sleeping Bear Dunes with the Great Lakes Recovery Team (how’s that for full circle conservation)?
 
I’ve greatly enjoyed connecting with the birds (and people) on the coast for the past year and look forward to all that is to come. ​