A rare species of shorebird in Delaware made progress in recent years, but experienced poor nest productivity this year.
Delaware’s piping plovers are considered threatened at the federal level and endangered at the state level.
Biologists counted 24 breeding pairs of plovers at Delaware beaches this year— a modern-day record. But the birds fell short of reproductive goals set by conservationists. They only produced 19 babies that were able to leave the nest.
“We suspect that that trend was driven predominantly by predation, as well as a pretty disruptive storm around the end of May,” said Hen Bellman, a coastal avian biologist at DNREC.
Bellman says one particularly crafty red fox found its way around protective barriers at Fowler Beach, and took out six nests in a 48-hour period.
More than two decades ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service set a goal of 1.5 fledglings per breeding pair of piping plovers. State officials say Delaware’s birds exceeded that goal from 2018 to 2020. But this year, their nest productivity rate was just over half of the goal.
“One thing we've been seeing at Fowler Beach is with this increase in breeding pairs, there’s also been a higher than average reproductive output,” Bellman said. “Last year, we had a state reproductive output of 2.2 fledglings per pair. This year, that fell to 0.8 fledglings per pair.”
Anthropogenic climate change causes more intense storms. But Bellman says the impacts of climate change on Delaware’s piping plover population are still unknown.
“Which is why it’s concerning that we do see years of poor productivity, because it’s this compounding accumulation of effects,” Bellman said.
Counts of least tern shorebirds were also lower in 2021 than in recent years.
