Could it be the mass erection of wind farms in the central Plains? Many of
these shorebirds including AGPL migrate up through the Plains in the spring.
With more and more wind farms and higher ones too in the Plains, could the
mortality of the breeding adults finally be showing up? I can imagine a whole
flock of shorebirds in a flooded muddy field surrounded by wind farms. A falcon
or other predator comes by and they fly right into the turbines. Weather
patterns could also be a big factor too as mentioned. I do hope it is the
latter. If it is not, many of our shorebirds (and other species) will be
imperiled by the growth of wind farms.
On Thursday, October 15, 2020, 12:24:45 PM EDT, Larry Trachtenberg
<trachtenb...@amsllp.com> wrote:
I wonder if those who regularly bird the dirt / farm fields of Orange County
black dirt region can weigh in on frequency/infrequency of sightings of golden
plovers over the last decade or so. I use to get there but only sporadically
and remember one really big day with about 25 birds but that was probably five+
years ago. I also see from various posts some of the fields in the Black Dirt
region are now less accessible than they once were (or even inaccessible) .
Thanks
L. Trachtenberg
Ossining
-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-125041945-26736...@list.cornell.edu
<bounce-125041945-26736...@list.cornell.edu> On Behalf Of Willie D'Anna
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 12:14 PM
To: '& [NYSBIRDS]' <nysbird...@list.cornell.edu>
Subject: RE:[nysbirds-l] American Golden-Plover - another NYS migrant to worry
about?
-CAUTION: EXTERNAL EMAIL
Like Angus, I also have noticed fewer reports and smaller numbers of American
Golden-Plover in Western New York. I live on Lake Ontario in Niagara County
where most autumns I could see this species without any special effort. That
is, I'm not one to hunt down a species for my year list, unless I am doing a
big year, but I still would find them. A few years ago, I noticed that newer
birders were chasing after reports of this species for their year list and I
assumed that they simply did not understand their habitat preferences or else
they could find their own. However, two years ago, I did a big year in Niagara
County and I had to actively search for Golden-Plover on two dozen occasions
before I finally found a single bird.
Two weeks later, I had two birds for a grand total of three in the county for
the year, a year in which I was exceptionally active. Of course, my difficulty
might simply be attributed to Golden-Plovers having a poor breeding season but
I never had any adults and I was active through the summer when they would have
passed through.
The Buffalo Ornithological Society (BOS) maintains a database of noteworthy
bird sightings in the BOS Region, which includes all of Kingbird Region One
plus the Niagara peninsula of Ontario. I don't have the skills to generate a
graph of high yearly counts from this database but from looking it over, it
seems that high yearly counts have decreased considerably. For example, there
are fewer triple-digit counts in the Niagara peninsula of Ontario which is the
best area in the region to find this species. Western NY would occasionally get
triple-digit counts as well but there have been none since 1997. And even
double-digit counts are fewer than before 2000.
This year, I managed to see one Golden-Plover in Niagara County, a bird found
by someone else, and it was on a pier on Lake Ontario, not in a field.
I spent considerable time looking in fields for this species this fall but
found none.
Willie D'Anna
Wilson, NY
Subject: American Golden-Plover - another NYS migrant to worry about?
From: Angus Wilson <oceanwander...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 16:18:10 -0400
X-Message-Number: 6
I am glad to see an informed discussion about the apparent decline in
Bonaparte's Gulls both in western and coastal New York State. Birding forms
tend to focus on the positive such as new sightings, influxes, and
weather-related events, with much less attention given to species that might be
disappearing before our eyes. The human brain is not very good at accessing the
absence of something and birding record systems are seemingly not much better
either.
Aside from Bonaparte's Gull, I have wondered about the status of America
Golden-Plover in the state. In the past several years I've noted few if any
reports of larger flocks that would draw birders to sod fields and other grassy
habitats in the fall, especially in eastern Long Island. In recent years only a
scattering of Golden-Plovers have been reported in the fall (principally from
late August to late October), rarely more than two together. Many people may
have successfully ticked their 'year bird' and not given much more thought to
it but the reality is that we probably are all ticking the SAME few birds.
Looking at the tallies for some of the hotspots for southbound plovers it was
not long ago that flocks of 60-100+ were frequent in and around Riverhead
(Suffolk NY). 2016 seems to have been the last good season (many reports of
60+), with 2012 and 2013 similarly featuring some larger flocks (counts of 102,
105, etc). Is something going on? Is the apparent decline in birds staging on
eastern Long Island echoed elsewhere?
American Golden-Plover is an arctic and subarctic tundra nesting species that
makes a long oceanic flight (a minimum of 2,400 miles nonstop) to wintering
grounds in the Pampas and Campos regions of southern South America. It is
possible that weather conditions have allowed birds to launch from further
north and simply bypass our area. Scrutiny of trends in the Canadian Maritime
Provinces and New England or the Mississippi/Missouri/Ohio flyway (if the
southbound route has shifted towards the center of the
continent) might shed light on this. Changes in pesticide use might also render
the Long Island sod fields less attractive such that birds arriving at night
leave soon after.
It's worth noting that aside from a possible shift in the migration route, many
high latitude breeding species undergo cycles of abundance that reflect cycles
in breeding success - these may relate to lemming cycles, late snowmelt, and so
on. It could be we are in the trough of one of these cycles. Careful monitoring
of the relative numbers of juveniles/1st basic and adults (estimating the ratio
from year to year) can give warnings of these changes. This could also be done
fairly easily with Bonaparte's Gulls because these two age classes are easy to
distinguish. Unfortunately, relatively few birders keep notes on these things
and again there's no simple way that I can find to recover such information
from eBird or other record collections. Maybe folks on this list will have
insight into how best to use the available data in this regard.
All food for thought. Don't get me started on Upland Sandpiper......
--
Angus Wilson
New York City
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