Monitoring western snowy plovers at Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, California: 2010 annual report
Hughey L. 2011. Monitoring western snowy plovers at Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, California: 2010 annual report. Natural Resource Technical Report. NPS/SFAN/NRTR—2011/503. National Park Service, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science. Fort Collins, Colorado
This report details the results of the 21st year of the Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) monitoring program within Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, California (PRNS). The goal of the 2010 monitoring effort was to determine abundance, distribution, and breeding success of snowy plovers nesting on federal lands within PRNS. The intended audience of this report includes appropriate agencies at the county, state, and federal levels. The report provides an overview of the 2010 snowy plover monitoring program on federal lands and summarizes the results of the data collected during the field season. In 2010, there were 150 surveys conducted between Kehoe Beach and North Beach parking lot, three from North Beach parking lot to the Lighthouse, eight on Limantour Spit, and two on Drakes Spit to determine abundance and distribution of breeding Snowy Plovers. A minimum estimate of 14 plovers bred on Point Reyes National Seashore. Exclosures were placed around 15 of 15 nests located in 2010. Nine of 15 nests hatched at least one egg and 21 of 42 eggs hatched. Seven of 21 chicks survived for at least 28 days after hatching for a 33% fledging rate. The number of fledglings per egg was 0.17, compared to 0.13 in 2009 and an average of 0.3 since exclosures were first used in 1996. This season resulted in a slight increase in overall reproductive success compared to the last two years, though the plover population at Point Reyes remains well below the average of the last 20 years that plovers have been monitored here. Efforts to improve habitat on all current and historic breeding beaches and reduce the impacts of human recreation and natural predators on nesting plovers should be continued and expanded in order to reach the USFWS recovery goal of 64 breeding birds on Point Reyes beaches.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Hughey, Lacey
- Date of Issue
- 2011-11
- Publisher
- National Park Service, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science
- Units
- NRSS , PORE , SFAN
- Keywords
- Annual Report, Charadrius alexandrinus, Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus, Monitoring, snowy plover, snowy plovers, Western Snowy Plover