BIRDS
Resighting Bird Bands Provides Valuable Data on Black Skimmers by Carmen Johnson and Kacy Cook, Coastal Waterbird Biologists O ctober is a great time to see Black Skimmers along the North Carolina coast. Large flocks, often numbering in the hun- dreds, are spotted loafing and foraging on beaches, especially near inlets. North Carolina provides important habitat for these birds during nesting and migration, but the number of skimmer nests documented in the state has declined in recent years, prompting the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) to uplist the species from a species of Special Concern to State Threatened.
To learn more about the birds and why their numbers have been declin- ing, biologists along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts have begun banding some of the chicks that hatch each year. In summer 2024, staff from Audu- bon NC banded 225 chicks in the state including 40 at one of NCWRC’s Waterbird Islands as part of the effort. Once the chicks could fly, they began dispersing to new sites. Then, as part of autumn migration surveys, biologists and volunteers used binocu- lars and scopes to examine the legs of each skimmer hoping to spot one of the plastic bands, known as a field readable band, with an alphanumeric code on it. Any bands identified are reported to the USGS Bird Banding Lab where the data are compiled and shared with biologists. The color of a Black Skimmer’s band indicates where the bird was banded. Orange bands are from Massachusetts, yellow are from New York, blue is New Jersey, white is Virginia, green bands mean the bird was banded in Florida, and red is from Texas. Birds banded in North Carolina have black bands with white text and are the most commonly resighted in the state. The next time you are at the beach keep an eye out for banded birds. You can report them to reportband.gov, where you’ll learn when and where the bird was banded, as well as receive a certificate of appreciation for providing data that help biol- ogists understand the dispersal, migration, and survival of this species.
CARMEN JOHNSON/NCWRC
Above: A National Park Service staff member carefully holds a young Black Skimmer chick as Audubon NC biol- ogist, Lindsay Addison, fits a black field readable band around the bird’s leg. Below: Unbanded Black Skimmers stand in a puddle during a recent survey.
22 2024 Wildlife Diversity Program Annual Report
JONATHON GRUENKE/NCWRC
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs