Piping plovers - small migratory shorebirds listed as endangered - saw a surge in their nesting success this year.
Piping plovers are hard to spot, with only two dozen mating pairs nesting in Delaware, but Kat Christie, coastal waterbird biologist with DNREC, says those mating pairs had a successful season.
“We had 41 chicks raised to maturity this year, compared to only 29 last year," she said.
However, at the same time, the number of nesting pairs decreased from 31 to 24. Christie says those birds didn’t disappear - they just moved to other locations on the Atlantic coast. She says it may be that around 24 pairs is all the state’s habitat can comfortably support at this time.
“We know that a lot of those birds just went fairly nearby. We have records of them nesting in places like New Jersey," she said.
That means Delaware is playing an important role in protecting these small shorebirds.
“We are feeding into this Atlantic population of piping plovers, so we are part of the reason that they are growing," Christie said.
Piping plovers are endangered in large part because they nest directly on the beach, rather than in trees, leaving them vulnerable to predators and to beach disturbances.
Christie says the number of piping plover pairs has grown steadily in the last eight years, due in large part to beach restoration at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in the wake of several storms. That restoration incidentally created what Christie calls “perfect piping plover habitat.”
