Oops sorry folks,
That was meant to be private, so I apologize for the political rant that
does not belong on OBOL. My bad.
Cheers
Dave
On 9/12/2018 3:22 PM, DJ Lauten and KACastelein wrote:
Hi Wayne
Sorry for the slow reply, just catching up on emails.
There are approximately 500 adult plovers currently along the Oregon coast, so 250 breeding pairs more or less - although we tend not to look at it that way! Since they are serial renesters and somewhat polyandrous, it is difficult to say exactly what a breeding pair is! Suffice to say our recovery goals were 200, and we are well over double that now, and we just had our second best productivity year since many moons ago.
As to the inland population, I do not have any good estimate, but to my knowledge it was considered stable but I suspect that is a bunch of guessing and nothing more. I do not think anyone has a good handle on how to count the birds and which direction the population is going in. Certainly they are facing some serious challenges based on the wintering areas (California, Baja).
I would love to know if any banded birds show up at Boundary Bay, but I suspect you will see some if we keep growing the population. The problem we have now is our current government who is rather unfriendly to these types of projects, and who may foolishly mistake an increase in population as a sign to cut back on work. Plovers need management or they will decline again.
cheers
Dave Lauten
On 9/6/2018 12:45 PM, Wayne Weber wrote:
Dave and Kathy,
Thanks very much for your report on the Snowy Plover recovery program. I know that both of you have been involved with it for many years, and that there has been considerable success (after huge efforts) in increasing the coastal population. Congratulations to you and to all involved.
Do you have an estimate of the total numbers of breeding pairs on the Oregon coast now as opposed to, say, 20 years ago? If so, I would be very interested to know what it is.
Also, do you have any info on the status and population trends of the inland Oregon breeding population that breeds around Malheur, Summer Lake, and elsewhere? (My first-ever Snowy Plover was at Harney Lake in 1969.)
A trivial addendum to the story is that over the summer we had two separate records of Snowy Plover at Boundary Bay near Vancouver (one of these just on the Labor Day weekend). This is far to the north of the breeding range, but these may have been from the increasing Oregon population.
Please, keep up the great work!
Wayne Weber
Delta, BC, Canada
contopus@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:contopus@xxxxxxxxx>
*From:*obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> [mailto:obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *DJ Lauten and KACastelein
*Sent:* Thursday, September 06, 2018 8:22 AM
*To:* obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [obol] Re: Documenting banded Snowy Plovers...particularly in Clatsop, Tillamook and Lincoln Counties.
Hi folks,
Dave mentioned how far and fast these plovers disperse. Well, a couple of points - Snowies will and do disperse in both north and south directions. Some birds winter further north than the breed. But to put the dispersal into perspective, I have reports of juvenile plovers from this year currently in Guadalupe -Nipomo NWR (this would be central California coast) and Camp Pendleton and Coronado Naval Base both in the San Diego area. No small jump!
Also we had a record number of plovers attempting or successfully nesting at a number of locations in Oregon outside of the core nesting area (which is Florence to Floras Lake). These include:
* *Clatsop Spit/Ft. Stevens* 1 nest
* *Nehalem*
* *Bayocean Spit *- 1 nest
* *Sitka Sedge* - 1 nest
* *Newport Area: *
o *Agate Beach* - brood reported
o *South Beach SP* - at least 3 nests one that fledged 2 chicks
* *Waldport area*: multiple nests
o *Quail St to Alsea mouth (incl Driftwood Shore SP)*
o *South Alsea to Patterson SP*
* *Elk River* - 1 nest successfully fledged
* *Gold Beach *1 nest; this location is extremely interesting as it
was not an expected location and it is to our knowledge was not a
known plover nesting beach historically and a very rare Curry cty
nest outside of Floras Lake.
There may be more than this, but at a minimum this is what I know at the moment.
Please do report any band combos you may see, and best yet try to get some pictures as it can be tricky to accurately report color bands and combinations.
Thanks Dave, and everyone else who cares and has interest. These are Oregon birds, and we are one of the few populations that has been very successful at recovery efforts, and we should all be proud of our Oregon Plovers. They are very special birds, and really a joy to work with.
Big Kudos goes out to all the agencies and people involved in the recovery effort including our current team Daniel Farrar, Adam Kotaich, Erica Krygsman, and Eleanor Gaines (Oregon Biodiversity Information Center): Laura Todd at USFWS and all the folks at FWS; Vanessa Blackstone at OPRD who has worked tirelessly along the north coast to get the plovers back breeding there - and all the other folks at OPRD who deal with myriad and often difficult recreation issues; Cindy Burns at USFS Dunes Rec Area and all the staff that works with her - the Dunes Rec area is really the CORE of the plover breeding range in Oregon; all the great folks at BLM Coos Bay (too many to name!!) whose support thru the years has been unwavering; Army Corp of Engineers who partly own the most important nesting site north of Monterrey Bay (Coos Bay North Spit) and also are instrumental at Clatsop Spit; ODFW (Charlie Bruce retired and Martin Nugent and Stu Love to name a few); and importantly Wildlife Services - all the guys who have worked for Paul Wolf and Mike Burrell - without these guys and the difficult work they do, there would not be this many plovers.
cheers
Dave Lauten and Kathy Castelein
