#moriv

[vtshorebirds]

Saying goodbye

It has been a few weeks since leaving the river and it feels like I just left days ago, maybe because things are slowing down for the first time since the middle of May. Reflecting back there is a slight break in the workload for a couple weeks where the end of the season starts to feel like the beginning. The daily nest and chick agendas (which are the lists we use to keep our survey rotations organized all summer) dwindled back down to more relaxing levels.

The adult trapping was done.

The plovers we caught in the beginning and had been watching all summer had successful broods and were flying south.

The only nests left to hatch were that of the other species we monitor.

And there were a few late least tern chicks that needed bands and measurements.

  We started spending more time focusing our surveys on counts and color band reading without nests to find or broods to search for - much like we did in the beginning of the field season.

There were always a few plover broods left to re-capture to get growth measurements and survival data. It was also very bitter sweet to see the chicks you had been monitoring every three days for the last 3 1/2 to 4 weeks fly away from you and start their next big step, migration. You are thrilled that they survived and can take care of themselves now, but it is hard not to become a little attached to certain broods. One of our favorites was the Grr brood (yes, it is supposed to sound like growling), we called them that because we had two chicks in the brood with two red bands, “R,R” for our data banding code, below a green band “G”.

They did very well fledging a full clutch even with a late nest initiation - somewhat atypical. Don't worry, the fourth chick just didn't make the picture!

Another one of our favorites was this little buddy.

A single chick that overcame many challenges before finally fledging. Weeks before the nest was initiated we notice one of the adults limping. Later we caught it on the nest to discover it had a stick protruding from its leg. We did all we could do by clipping the stick short, likely increasing its quality of life and chances of survival.

This male adult was very tough establishing a territory, helping incubate a nest until hatch, and then protecting and brooding the chick - all with this injury.

Another obstacle these birds have to overcome while nesting is the weather. Weather systems roll across the Great Plains with storms producing high winds, heavy rains, and sometimes hail that can damage eggs or destroy whole nests.

The chick above, came from the only egg of four to survive the hail.

But now back to the field season wrapping up. The slow time did not last long. The last weeks were full of activity outside of our normal research rotation. There was field gear plus the office supplies for 28 people needed to be cleaned, inventoried, and packed. Seven boats and trucks needed to be cleaned, inspected, repaired, and piled high with all the equipment from the project to be sent back to Virginia. There was a database full of all the observations we collected all year, and binders stuffed full that go with it. All this data needs to be checked for errors and consistency before analysis can start. Without datasheets we would have just been out there cruising on boats, walking beaches, and looking at birds.

It puts us inside when we are used to six days a week of this.

Along with all that, most everything I own needed to be packed up and the place I was staying cleaned thoroughly. I needed to write that year-end report I have been procrastinating on. The last broods needed to be recaptured one last time. I needed to set up walk through inspections for all the apartments. I needed to get everything in line for a new job. Then it sets in. I needed to do the hardest thing of the entire field season…..

Say goodbye.

It has been a wonderful field season. Thank you so much to my crew for all the long hard hours that you put in this year. Your passion and dedication to science and the natural world showed on a daily basis.  Your humor and positive attitudes on even the long difficult days was greatly appreciated. I hope that I have been able to teach you as much as I have learned. I hope that my crew, my extended super crew, and everyone else on the project has had as great of a time working with me as I did with you.

Thank you, Alex Cook, Elsie Shogren, Diane Borden, and Katie Walker.

- Brandon Boehm, alumni '10,'11,'12,'13,'14

[vtshorebirds]

Working with Royalty

Well, our time in South Dakota is swiftly drawing to a close. In April, it seemed we had a rather large expanse of time in front of us. Almost five months have flown by! And it’s no wonder; we were inundated with early nesters.

  This year, our section seemed to be a top spot for some of the earliest nesting and older birds. Several of our nesters were banded before 2010. A few were banded as early in the project as 2006 and 2005.

If you’ve been keeping up with the VT Shorebirds blog posts, you’ll know about the plover called “Four Blacks”. She is named for the four black bands on her lower legs that identify her as an individual. She was banded on May 18, 2005, making her the first plover banded on the Missouri River project! So basically, that makes her plover royalty. Our team was quite pleased to be spotting the Plover Queen regularly in April and May. Her celebrity status made our crew feel a bit special by association. (Did I mention that we’re a bunch of bird nerds?)

Suddenly, we stopped seeing her during our surveys. We were a little bit sad, possibly a wee bit offended, that our sandbar was no longer good enough for plover royalty. About two weeks after she dropped off our radar, Four Blacks reappeared near a craftily constructed nest, tucked in a twiggy area away from some of the primo nesting habitat. The wily old lady appeared to have pulled one over on us! We were more than a little aghast that she would do something like that to us. We had spent a good two weeks wondering if she had died following what must be an exhausting migration for an old bird.

It was not until trapping, however, that we got to experience this old plover’s full bag of tricks. Because they had laid the nest next to some dried twigs, putting a trap around that nest was difficult. It was also tricky to find a spot where you could clearly see the trap. The best spot to lie watching that trap was on top of a bunch of pointy sticks, along with a couple hundred ants. To top it all off, Four Blacks would never, NEVER, go in the trap. Her mate did, three times in fact. We tried watching her nest just to see if she would sit on it. 

She finally sat on her nest on June 10th, the day before her nest hatched. We had finally conquered her! A cheer went through the crew; we had done it! All four of her chicks were banded and three have been resighted as fledglings. Now that her chicks are flying on their own, Four Blacks has migrated to Florida to hopefully have a pleasant winter with the rest of the snowbirds.

Our crew had a great season. I am very pleased to have worked with a group of people that were passionate about conservation. On top of that, we managed to have fun even though we worked crazy hours. Thanks for being so positive and hard working, guys!

[vtshorebirds]

Plovers and terns aren't the only birds building nests along the Missouri River – here are some cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) collecting mud for their nests on the cliffs at Ponca State Park. 

[vtshorebirds]

A scoping we must go

While a scope is a bit heavy and awkward to carry around six days a week, it is my favorite piece of equipment to use. Especially on the Missouri River at this time of the year, so much is going on in spring. Even when the ploves are not around, the Bald Eagles have hatched and are beginning to emerge from the nest. 

There are at least five nest in our ten river mile stretch. Whenever I see them I am reminded of the successful conservation efforts that allow us to enjoy watching them every day. We still have lots of nest that are about to hatch on the sandbars, many of the Canada Geese are still incubating. We have seen a few new families sneaking off as we survey across the sandbars.  

 One of my favorite movies has to be “Fly Away Home” but I prefer watching the baby geese with the parents through my scope than dreaming of a brood of chicks following me around. I have even made the joke with my crew that if they turn around and something yellow is following them they will have to buy an ultralight aircraft to show them how to migrate.

However plovers are showing up left and right, so most of the time we are watching them through the scope. If you ask me why I am back for a 4th year I would have to say it is to see my old friends and babies return. The familiar black and orange feathered faces are back so I have been looking for chicks coming back for the first time to the place that they were born. A few days ago I ran into one of them while surveying. 

What an experience it must have been for them to set off from the Missouri River last year after only knowing a small sandbar and traveling the world to the wintering grounds. This plover was checking out a new sandbar with some Semipalmated Plovers. It’s a strange new world for the new adult plovers trying to find territories and mates but even the old pros have trouble woo-ing the lady birds. We have seen some goose stepping from a male with an uninterested female however she did appreciate the scrape that he was working on by sitting in it after he tried a scrape display. 

Finally this week we got a chance to get our eyes out of the scope and find the first Piping Plover nest for the 2014 season. Nests are our tie to the birds outside of the scope here on the river, we can actually see them (with a lot of effort!), use the opportunity to capture and band birds. Band chicks, watching them grow; knowing the parents that guard them. Without this opportunity we would only be watching them from afar never understanding the intimate details of the plovers' lives. 

- Stephanie Nefas

[vtshorebirds]

Piping plover mating rituals filmed by one of our biologists, Stephanie Nefas. Watch for the characteristic 'goose-stepping' and pebble tossing. Males use these behaviors to 'impress' potential mates...this time it doesn't seem to have worked.