Patuxent Wildlife Research Center has a new site for high resolution native bee and insect photographs

Patuxent Wildlife Research Center has a new site for high resolution native bee and insect photographs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml

These photographs were taken with off-the-shelf software and cameras using stacking methodologies and procedures developed by the U.S. Army's public health group. These are high resolution photographs that are available for all the agencies to download as well as the general public and are in Creative Commons license.

Contact information: Sam Droege

Hawaiian Seabirds Vulnerable to Sea-Level Rise on Low-Lying Atoll

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3250&from=rss_home

Contact information: Jeffrey S. Hatfield

Return to Poplar Island
Restoration is a Learning Process
By Ann Tihansky

In early July, USFWS and USGS biologists visited Poplar Island in Chesapeake Bay as a routine monitoring trip to see how nesting season was going. In late May, USFWS biologists Biologists Chris Guy, Peter McGowan, and Robbie Callahan identified what they thought would be prime nesting areas: open sandy and shelly uplands in several areas on Poplar Island. They experimented with several techniques using tern decoys and audio recordings to help entice common and least terns to move to these locations and avoid hazardous construction areas. see previous story).

http://www.doi.gov/pmb/ocean/news/newswave/upload/DOI_Newswave-Spring-2012-final.pdf

As part of the monitoring process, the biologists count nests, eggs and chicks at marked ites where they can track progress over time to see if these restoration methods are successful. In the process, the terns are teaching the biologists a few new things. "Common terns are surprising us this year.  First their numbers were way down compared to the previous two years, but then more and more birds kept arriving in late June and July," said Mike Erwin, USGS Biologist at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. Erwin has been involved with the wildlife monitoring and Poplar restoration since the early 1990's when it was still just a conceptual idea. He has been the lead on waterbird monitoring since 2002 conducting tern research for about 40 years.

The terns are indeed using the specially-created sites but they have also set up nesting colonies in other areas that are much more heavily vegetated. According to Erwin, "birds move from year to year and we can only guess what habitat they will favor. We construct habitat types that we think the birds will prefer but they often surprise us. During the restoration process, we carefully design a variety of habitats so that we can offer up suitable areas for successful nesting. But the birds don't read any of the plans. Restoration is a learning process."

"Nesting season starts in late May. This year, the first birds began arriving on schedule, with the least terns beginning nesting a week or so earlier than the common terns. Incubation usually takes three weeks. Newly-hatched chicks face numerous challenges both from weather (rain, heat) and from many predators. In early July, the biologists report that the birds are having a pretty good year as compared to the last five or six, but the nesting site numbers of least terns are down from last year," One of the greatest threats to nesting success at Poplar Island is predation.  "We've had a serious problem with great horned owls from nearby Coaches Island and also we suspect from the mainland, about 3 miles away," said Erwin. The USFWS team has relocated a number of owls and tried to keep them from showing their young where the terns nest, but they are very effective predators." At Poplar Island, there are several nesting sites within a relatively small area. Once a predator knows the eggs and chicks are there, they can devastate an entire colony by repeatedly visiting night after night. USFWS has video footage of them coming in night after night. "After continued raids like this, the terns will just abandon their nests", said Erwin. The appearance of terns in a heavily vegetated area on the 'northern' part of the island was a big surprise. "We think the terns may have started retreating to the vegetated areas in response to the owl predation. It's harder to find the chicks in this type of habitat - both for us and for the owls!" said Erwin. Poplar Island is also an important site for migrating shorebirds within Chesapeake Bay. The big open sandy and muddy flats created on Poplar Island provide critical shorebird feeding and roosting habitats. There aren't very many places like that in the Bay. Overall, a wide variety of waterbirds are becoming well established on the island throughout the year: ospreys, eagles, terns, egrets, and many other nesting species in summer, migrant shorebirds in spring and fall, and lots of ducks and geese in winter. While they may not be following the exact plan, the birds are definitely taking advantage of these newly created habitats.

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