This past year was a tough one for shorebirds in Southold Town, but perhaps not for the reasons you might suspect.
North Fork Audubon, which runs Southold Town’s Shorebird Monitoring Program, reports that a burgeoning population of red foxes may be the primary culprit in the decline in the number of shorebirds fledged from nests on the North Fork this past year.
Pictured above: One of the few successes of this year’s piping plover nesting season was four chicks who all fledged from a nest in Southold. They’re shown above at 3 weeks of age, nearing their fledgling age | photo courtesy shorebird steward Laura Helf
In addition, two major coastal flood events in early April likely wiped out potential early nesting sites, and fat-tired and electric bikes are a growing threat to shorebirds.
Members of North Fork Audubon gave their annual report on the Shorebird Monitoring Program to the Southold Town Board at its Dec. 3 work session.
“It was a terrible shorebird season, overall, for piping plovers, least terns and oystercatchers,” said Jennifer Murray of Turtleback Environmental Education Center, who serves as the Shorebird Manager for North Fork Audubon. “The typical situations have been the same throughout the decades — off-leash dogs, illegal ATV use, illegal camping, but this year it was probably mostly due to red fox predation. It was a good year for the red fox, and they really did a number on the shorebirds.”
Ms. Murray said red fox populations usually run in seven year cycles, with the animals often succumbing to mange in years that they don’t do well. But they’re not the shorebirds’ only predators. Raccoons and opossum also often eat eggs they find in shorebird nests.
Of the 24 sites monitored by North Fork Audubon volunteers, only 10 locations had fledgling birds this year.
Endangered piping plovers had a rough season, with only 16 nesting pairs producing 11 fledglings, off of banner years in 2023 and 2022. In 2023, there were 23 nesting pairs who produced 22 fledglings, and in 2022, 15 pairs produced a record 30 fledgelings, said Ms. Murray.
One historically active shorebird nesting site, Conkling Point off of Kerwin Boulevard in Greenport West, flooded during the April storms, and though Audubon volunteers had put up shorebird nesting enclosures, those enclosures were underwater for much of the nesting season as the tide never really subsided to its levels before the storms.
“In the history of the North Fork, before development, they would go to a new nesting area, but now, with over 70 percent of the shoreline bulkheaded, they’re condensed into these tiny areas that we have protected for them,” said Ms. Murray. “Creating or nurturing or encouraging these habitats for them would be a management strategy down the road….This ties into horseshoe crabs and diamondback terrapins — they’re all using the same land.”
While it’s difficult to manage natural predators, their recent plundering makes it more imperative that humans understand what they can do protect shorebirds, said Ms. Murray in an interview with The Beacon in mid-December.
Enclosures protect piping plover nesting areas, but they don’t protect the stretch of beach where young fledgelings often venture from their nests.
“They’re not going to stay near the fenced area. I’ve tracked them within two days of hatching a mile away,” she said. “A dog walker might be avoiding a fenced area, but there might be just-hatched chicks down the beach.”
“Keep your dog leashed and walk the water’s edge, the wet sand area,” she advised dog owners. “Plover parents will run them up to the wrack line and sit them down there. That’s up and down the Atlantic flyway, not just here. Everyone can help. It’s a community effort.”
At the work session, Town Board members also raised concerns about people ignoring fencing and signage around shorebird nesting areas while walking their dogs, especially off leash.
While Southold Town has required dogs to be leashed on public property since 2013, these laws are not widely enforced or followed.
Ms. Murray pointed out that, at Breakwater Beach in Mattituck, which is usually one of the program’s most successful sites, there was only one fledgling this year. She added that a crew of dedicated Audubon volunteers had seen someone at the security gate at Breakwater Beach let in a dog walker with their dog on a 25-foot lead. The dog “went right into the least tern area,” she said.
“Our shorebird stewards do a lot of outreach in the field. A lot of people say ‘my dog is plover friendly,” she said, adding that it might be helpful if the town designates certain beaches as dog-friendly. She added that the Mattituck Park District, which owns Breakwater Beach, is working on creating a dog park.
“All our beaches are so small that we have to balance everything,” said Councilwoman Jill Doherty, who worked to draft the town’s leash law. “We came up with ‘when the lifeguard is on duty, you can’t have a dog at the beach at that time.’ It’s the honor system.”
“We need to do a better job of educating the public,” said Councilman Greg Doroski.
Councilman Brian Mealy, the board liaison to the town’s Conservation Advisory Council, suggested the town include information about shorebird nesting and dog leash laws in a homeowner’s guide produced by the CAC.
Ms. Murray added that Audubon has also been working hard on protecting shorebirds at South Harbor Beach in Southold, which was “one of the more successful sites.”
“We’ve been trying to do a lot of outreach there to get people used to walking their dogs on leashes, and I saw two teens on bikes driving right through” the shorebird nesting area, she said.
She added that Suffolk County parks have banned fat tire bicycles on beaches, and New York State parks are considering doing the same.
Electrically-powered ebikes, which also often have fat tires, are an emerging threat, and the town does not yet have a code governing the use of ebikes.
“But the single biggest killer of wild birds is outdoor cats,” said Peggy Lauber, the President of North Fork Audubon, urging owners of cats to keep their pets indoors.
Ms. Murray said she has also documented the presence of cats in shorebird nesting areas.
She suggested the town develop a pilot program to use trail cams, already used by the town’s hunting program, to monitor a shorebird nesting site to determine what type of predator is keeping the birds from successfully fledging.
“The cameras would be behind the fencing,” she said. “We’d notify people they’re in use.”
Board members asked Ms. Murray to come back with a suggestion of a site to be monitored next year, and ideas for how to encourage the public to protect shorebirds on beaches.
“There’s definitely a shift in support from the board to improve management strategies,” said Ms. Murray later in December.
“I think they’ll rebound, but they need aggressive new ways of helping them,” she said of the birds. “Their historical numbers will probably never happen again due to habitat loss.”
Protecting plovers, she said, “goes beyond species survival. To me it’s representing a preservation of a pristine habitat. I see them adapting every season to humans — they nest on beachfronts, right on the shoreline. It’s just that their habitat is dwindling.”
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