Fortescue Shorebird Banding (Photos)
Greetings,
Yesterday my housemates and I had our first opportunity to band at Fortescue Beach in NJ. As before with our site at Thompson’s Beach, our primary target species was Semipalmated Sandpiper. As luck would have it, we got to Fortescue and found thousands of shorebirds feeding on the beach looking for Horseshoe Crab eggs that were recently deposited. The frenzy was incredible as thousands of Dunlin, Sanderling, Red Knot, Short-billed Dowitcher, Ruddy Turnstone, and Semipalmated Sandpipers fought for space among the Laughing Gulls to find this ephemeral food source.
All in all banding was a great success, despite the terrible weather which started half way through the day (wind and lots of rain!). It was also a fun experience too because it was our first day using the whoosh nets to catch the birds. For those of you who aren’t familiar with that term, whoosh nets are similar to canon nets in the fact that they are a net that gets launched over the birds trapping them underneath The only real difference is that the net is powered by kinetic energy that is stored in the form of a bungee chord. Unfortunately I do not have photos of the nets or their firing yet because things were a bit too hectic for that type of photographic leisure. At any rate, what follows are some photos of the birds at least from yesterday before the rains came. Enjoy!
~Chad
3 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
May 19th, 2008 @ 6:13 pm
Chad,Nice photos as always…Plenty of birds to see and i’m sure that there are high hopes of seeing a life bird again amongst all those shore birds..Keep up the great work that you and your fellow work mates are doing..Remember to keep those photos coming and mom and i will keep LOOKING…. MOM&DAD
May 26th, 2008 @ 7:46 am
Thanks for your post & photos. My wife and I were at Fortescue on the 17th, but didn’t see nearly as many Red Knots as in prior years. Maybe we were too early, as this was 4 days before the full moon, which brings the Horseshoe Crabs. We saw the banding (and briefly helped) last year at Fortescue. It was something we will never forget. Thanks for your efforts on behalf of the birds.
May 27th, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
Pat,
I want to thank you for your wonderful comment and kind words. Working at Fortescue these past few weeks has been nothing short of a treat, and in fact today we were there and banded over 100 Semipalmated Sandpipers! Having never lived near the Delaware Bay before, it was hard to really take in the scope of how important the bay really is for migrating birds. But now that I’ve witnessed the massive amounts of birds stopping in, and now that I’ve seen the birds gaining large amounts of fat which they use for fuel to fly north, I understand. It’s an understanding that goes to your soul, and I am only more than glad to do the work I do, for the birds, and for future generations to enjoy. It’s been a wonderful experience I hope to enjoy again in the future.