American Oystercatcher Camera Project Captures Predators, Disturbance

This very curious American Oystercatcher chick was born on Jones Seaside in the summertime of 2024, the primary to hatch on the web site in 4 years!

It was an unimaginable coincidence that we caught all of it on digicam. Audubon has been monitoring American Oystercatchers on Lengthy Island since 2014 and through the years we’ve got seen that nests are being constructed, chicks should not hatching. 

That is complicated as a result of different beach-nesting birds – like Piping Plovers – are benefitting from Audubon and our companions’ stewardship and monitoring efforts. We exit early within the season to place string fencing round oystercatcher, plover, and tern nesting websites, and put exclosures round Piping Plover nests (oystercatchers are too huge to get out and in). Audubon additionally hosts outreach days to coach beachgoers about defending birds.

We had to determine what was occurring to the American Oystercatchers and have been thrilled to obtain funding to launch the “American Oystercatcher Digicam Challenge.”

Through the 2024 season, we piloted two cameras at Jones Seaside. Extremely, 4 chicks fledged from three nests that summer season! 

Whereas we have been more than pleased to document successful, we wanted extra information to know what was impacting the nests that failed.

We secured funding for the 2025 season to place cameras on 24 nests throughout three websites: Jones Seaside, Tobay Seaside (Oyster Bay), and Lido Seaside and Level Lookout (City of Hempstead). We additionally introduced on a devoted employees one who would assess the tens of hundreds of triggered and time-lapse photos the cameras would produce. 

We deployed all cameras between April and July to scale back disturbance on late-season nests. Working with our companions, we recognized pairs to look at and various digicam placement throughout older and newer nesting pairs. 

9 nests hatched, and 15 failed. The highest predators recognized on digicam have been cats, crimson foxes, and racoons. Disturbance generally took unusual kinds – like an owl that landed close to a nest however simply needed a quiet place to eat. We additionally famous human disturbance like beachgoers tossing trash within the nesting web site.

Loads went properly in 2025: we improved our digicam deployment methods, and none of our cameras have been broken or stolen. The birds have been undisturbed by the cameras, aside from a number of very chicks! 

There are additionally points to deal with: Fog and different climate impacted our cameras, and we seen that smaller predators like ghost crabs have been continuously missed. 

The American Oystercatcher Digicam Challenge shall be increasing this coming season to extra seashores and nesting websites! We may also be becoming a small variety of oystercatchers with GPS transmitters so we’ve got each foraging and nesting information.

As we gather extra conclusive proof, we look ahead to working with the managers of every seaside nesting web site to deal with the problems. All of us share the identical objective to guard these birds and assist their populations develop.

This work is funded by the Robert F. Schumann Basis and The Nationwide Fish and Wildlife Basis