🏖️ Birds of a feather flock together—at the beach! Much like beach-goers in the summer, shorebirds love to flock at Florida’s beaches where they settle and find refuge in the sand dunes and coastal habitats. However, they are increasingly facing threats from human disturbance and climate-driven habitat loss. Along Florida’s Gulf Coast, ESA's environmental scientists are monitoring protected species including the American Oystercatcher, Black Skimmer, Least Terns, and Wilson’s Plover—all classified as Imperiled Beach Nesting Birds (IBNB). In Lee County, this monitoring is supporting an emergency shoreline relief effort where crews are working to repair portions of the Sanibel Causeway destroyed by Hurricane Ian, and a boating vessel recovery effort at Bunche Beach. While in Pinellas County, the teams are monitoring IBNB and other types of shorebird activity at the Grand Canal Maintenance Dredging project in Pass-a-Grille, and at the Indian Shores Beach Dune Restoration project. Much of their work involves surveying and recording nesting sites, which blend in with the sand and are hard to spot, and requires a close study of bird behavior. That means looking for clues like footprints, divots in the sand known as “scrapes,” and for the Wilson’s Plover in particular, watching for the “broken wing display” where the birds feign injury, says BJ Quinton, GISP, who recently observed the behavior. “Seeing me as a predator, the bird pretended to be hurt with a broken wing so I would see it as an easy target and be drawn away from the nest,” he said. “The exact location of the nest in this area is not crucial, so I didn’t pursue it further for fear of stressing the adult. But this sort of behavior would be a clue that we do have a nest in the area.” 📷's by BJ Quinton, GISP, and Kristin Maki Jenkins Pinellas County Government Lee County #Shorebirds #Biology #ImperiledBeachNestingBirds #Florida #Birds #CoastalHabitat #ShorelineProtection
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