BIRDS
You Are What You Eat – New Collaborative Project to Assess Tern and Skimmer Diets by Carmen Johnson, Waterbird Biologist and Claire Reilly, Waterbird Technician
Top: Black Skimmer chicks are monitored in a holding area waiting for them poop. Bottom: Community science specialist, Karen Clark, returns a Common Tern chick to its nest. Common Tern chicks are easily distinguished from other tern species by a dark brown throat patch. With the help of volunteers, WRC staff collected fecal samples from chicks multiple times between hatching and fledging. To collect the samples, chicks were carefully picked up either from their nest or nearby beach and placed in a holding area where they were monitored until they pooped. Once the sample was deposited, chicks were returned to their original location. The fecal sample was then scooped and placed in a vial to preserve it for processing. Careful records were kept of location, date, and chick age to see how diets may vary by site, time of year, and chick age. At the end of the field season, the samples were sent to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for analysis by Dr. Gemma Clucas, who will use a DNA metabarcoding technique she developed to determine what forage species the birds have been eating. The results from North Caro- lina will be compared with those from other states to see how the diet of chicks varies across the region. This research will continue in the 2025 breeding season. D uring summer 2024, Wildlife Diversity staff took part in a study to learn about the diets of Common Terns and Black Skimmers (state endangered and state threatened species, respectively). The study, humor- ously referred to as Project Poop, is a multistate effort to learn about the availability of forage fishes, monitor changes in the birds’ diets throughout the nesting sea- son, and better understand a potential factor affecting chicks’ survival to fledgling age.
CARMEN JOHNSON /NCWRC
CARMEN JOHNSON /NCWRC
19 2024 Wildlife Diversity Program Annual Report
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs