Hi, all!
We had a great time yesterday at our JNMP bird survey despite the cold! Thanks to Roland, Tiffany, Tony, Zachary, Chris and John Ryan for braving the cold to record birds with me! Here is the recap:
The weather was very chilly, in the 50s and 60s throughout and it was cloudy. Between 8:30 and 12:00, we collected data from all 6 point count locations (3 restored and 3 unrestored), starting each count with 2 minutes of silence, then recording for 10 minutes.
Overall, we noticed a few patterns. As expected, the restored areas showed greater abundance and diversity of birds. In the restored areas, we saw a variety of birds, including warblers, cardinals, and birds of prey. At the unrestored areas, we mostly had vultures, with a few outliers here and there (eagles, ospreys, pelicans). We saw little to no perched birds in the unrestored areas, a large majority were flyovers.
The highlight of the morning was definitely at Unrestored #2, where we observed an adult bald eagle pestering an Osprey until it dropped the fish it was holding, and the eagle caught the fish in midair! Both Roland and Zach got shots of this.
Despite the cold and the low tide, we all had a great time and collected lots of good data! The island has definitely healed a bit from the hurricanes, though it’s still pretty damaged. I find it interesting that the restored areas are recovering faster when it comes to the birds they are attracting.
Here is the eBIrd checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S210062276
Finally, I have great news! I was able to get Birds Canada to give us access to the NatureCounts app for our data collection!!! What this means is that we now have our very own portal in the app that we can use to collect our data. Let me know if you want me to train you and give you access as a data collector. If you’re curious about the app you can get information here: https://naturecounts.ca/nc/default/main.jsp
Hope to see you at the survey next month! I will get back to you all as soon as possible about the date.
Thank you all for being a part of this,
Sophia H
