Plover Program Pays Off

It was a good year for piping plovers on East Hampton beaches, Juliana Duryea of the town’s Natural Resources Department reported to the town board on Dec. 2. The birds are considered an endangered species in New York State. Their East Coast population is on a federal list of threatened species, and they are protected.

A program to protect them and increase the chances of successful breeding begins in late March each year, Ms. Duryea said, and the results are reported to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the state.

Staffers, including volunteers, patrol the areas where birds have previously nested, and to which they normally return, for tracks or sightings of the birds themselves. When found, the areas are flagged. After nests are built, many are surrounded by wire fencing with netting on top that enables birds to get in and out but excludes predators such as raccoons, foxes, cats, and dogs.

When eggs hatch, Ms. Duryea spends her days keeping track of the fledglings through her binoculars. They immediately range away from the nest, she said. “They’re pretty much on their own; they’re pretty small and pretty vulnerable.”

Twenty-seven pairs of plovers nested in East Hampton this year and hatched 42 young. Eighty-five percent of the nests produced a brood, Ms. Duryea said — “a really, really good number.” The success might be due in part, she added, to fewer foxes in evidence this year.

Plover reproduction numbers out here hit a low in 2010, Ms. Duryea said, but have been steadily growing since.

Nest locations are identified using a global positioning system and plotted on maps. The birds, she said, took advantage of a pond area in Wainscott, where an overwash of tidal water during Hurricane Sandy “created a really good habitat.”

Another pair successfully raised young this year at a nest site near Sammy’s Beach, where last year a high tide during a storm washed away their nest. This year, Ms. Duryea said, the plovers built their nest high on the beach near the dune, away from the tide line.

The Natural Resources Department also monitors the numbers of least terns and the distribution of seabeach amaranth and seabeach knotweed, two rare and protected plant species. J.P.