A Day in the Life: Shorebird Program Manager

A couple of minutes earlier than dawn, Megan Hatten arrives on the Ten Thousand Islands Area Analysis Station in Goodland. Because the Southwest shorebird program supervisor for Audubon Florida, she and Derek Salge, her counterpart with the Florida Division of Environmental Safety, begin assembling the day’s provides: first support equipment, handheld radio, life jackets, and boat keys. Right this moment, they plan to mark off shorebird nesting areas at Dickmans Island, a small island simply south of Marco Island, situated inside the Rookery Bay Nationwide Estuarine Analysis Reserve boundary.

“We’ll take these smaller indicators to place up on the entrance part, which is the place most individuals are strolling,” Hatten says to Salge. She hundreds two varieties of indicators, a field with spools of string and colourful flagging, and numerous energy instruments onto a cart and rolls it down the dock to the boat. They each climb onboard; Hatten begins the engine and factors the boat out towards the open water.

As they arrive on the seashore, they see that a number of boats have already pulled up on the sand. Keen beachcombers choose by mounds of shells alongside the breaking waves, paying little consideration to the flocks of shorebirds which are doing the identical. Hatten and Salge cut up up, every taking a set of indicators and numerous instruments in numerous instructions to mark the areas of the seashore the place threatened shorebirds like Wilson’s Plovers have already began organising territories.

“Proper now, we’re seeing a wide range of wintering birds on this seashore, staging for spring migration,” says Hatten. “And, over there may be the place the Wilson’s Plovers sometimes scrape their nests,” she provides as she factors over her shoulder.

After taking a water break, Hatten and Salge end the arduous work of digging holes between the excessive tide line and the vegetation and start the second step: Connecting the indicators with string and flagging to create a protecting circle round the very best nesting spots. The birds don’t all the time stay inside the roped-off areas, so indicators alert people to close by nesting exercise, hidden amidst small vegetation.

“We put up these indicators and string to assist defend eggs and chicks from being trampled, as a result of they’re effectively camouflaged and really arduous to see,” Hatten says. Past that, dad or mum birds’ solely probability of defending their brood is to dive-bomb approaching threats, which might use numerous power. If disturbed too many occasions, the birds could abandon their nests.

Inside two hours of arrival, each nesting areas on the island are posted, the tide has risen, and the beachcombers head again to their boats. Two girls strategy Hatten and, after a brief dialog, thank her and say they’re glad to know that Audubon Florida is defending the birds that nest right here.

Hatten’s work will not be finished; in reality, it has solely simply begun. She nonetheless has a number of extra nesting areas to put up within the area, however with nesting season now underway, her job is about to shift from set up to training. 

Upon returning to the dock, Hatten fields an interview with the native newspaper to boost extra consciousness, as a result of, even in locations the place indicators and flagging are put in, birds are susceptible to disturbance. Indicators don’t cease unleashed canines, errant seashore balls, or kites flying overhead from inflicting chaos for nesting birds.

In a number of weeks, Hatten will host a gathering with regional interagency companions, together with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Fee, Collier County Sheriff’s Division, the Metropolis of Marco Island, and others, to make sure everyone seems to be on the identical web page about posted areas, guidelines of the seashore, and essential dates. It will be all-hands-on-deck for the upcoming Memorial Day and Independence Day holidays.

Her subsequent activity: recruiting a crew of volunteers to employees info stations at nesting seashores like this one over the approaching months. Employees and volunteers crew as much as educate seashore guests concerning the fuzzy fluffballs wandering of their midst, and guarantee regulation enforcement officers are notified of any points.  Via the charisma of our avian buddies, we develop our community all through the hemisphere, inspiring new constituencies—and future generations—to behave on behalf of birds and folks. 

Are you interested by volunteering? Click here!