Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring reported that a monthly bird survey conducted Sept. 13 was a “joy,” as the organization counted more birds than usual, including federally endangered species.
AMITW routinely monitors beaches for nesting shorebirds and also conducts monthly bird surveys aimed at counting the population and variety of birds on the island.
“We are contracted by the county to conduct monthly shorebird surveys,” Kathy Doddridge, AMITW’s shorebird coordinator, said in a phone conversation with The Islander Sept. 18. “This information is then used with the coastal environmental organization that the county works with.”
The data can be useful in permitting projects and beach renourishment, for example.
The information also provides a snapshot of bird populations before and after beach projects.
Doddridge follows a procedure to count the birds, which often show up in large groups that can be difficult to track.
“We’re basically counting large numbers of birds, anything that’s in groups of 10 or more,” she said. “Each group is given a GPS mark.”
For particularly large groups, Doddridge utilizes population sampling in which a small subset of the total population of birds is multiplied to estimate a total number.
The September survey counted 33 species and 3,789 individual birds, a big jump from the 24 species and 1,960 individual birds in August.
“We had a lot of varieties but we also had huge numbers,” Doddridge said. “The number of gulls and terns just at Bean Point (in Anna Maria), there were thousands. It took us an hour to count them all.”
She said her favorite part of the process is finding rare species.
“It’s always fun to see those rare birds such as the black tern. We only see them August through September,” she said.
The black terns have an interesting characteristic of changing colors. Doddridge saw two that displayed completely different shades of feathers.
AMITW also observed the following species: American oystercatcher, marbled godwit, red knot, short-billed dowitcher, reddish egret and the federally endangered piping plover.
From the director’s report
Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring documented no new nests or hatches on the beach for the week beginning Sept. 16.
The good news is that during some 70-day, overdue nest excavations, we found six nests had a couple of hatched shells, indicating there were hatches that we missed.
So despite the overwash and water inundation caused by Tropical Storm Debby in early August and high tides from Hurricane Francine in mid-September, the nests were not total losses.
We continue to monitor the entirety of Anna Maria Island for nesting or hatching activities.
And we are hopeful that we will see more hatches in the coming weeks from the 17 remaining nests.
— Kristen Mazzarella, AMITW executive director