Beach-nesting piping plovers — a federally listed threatened species and a Delaware-listed endangered species — experienced modest nesting success in Delaware during 2022, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control announced Tuesday.
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By Mike FinneyBeach-nesting piping plovers — a federally listed threatened species and a Delaware-listed endangered species — experienced modest nesting success in Delaware during 2022, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control announced Tuesday.
Seven pairs of the birds were recorded nesting at the Point at Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes, with 17 more documented at Fowler Beach on Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Milton.
That’s the same number recorded in 2021. Delaware documented state-record nest productivity from 2018-20.
Piping plovers produced more fledglings in 2022 than in 2021, successfully raising 34 chicks to their flying age of 25 days.
Additionally, nesting occurred later than normal, and nest and chick loss were high, following several spring storms and higher-than-average predation at Fowler Beach.
In 1996, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service established a goal of 1.5 fledglings per nesting pair as part of a piping plover recovery plan, and Delaware exceeded that goal from 2018-20.
Last year, the 34 fledglings yielded a productivity rate of 1.4 young per nesting pair — substantially higher than the 0.8 fledglings per pair in 2021.
Recovery efforts for the birds in Delaware involve partnerships between DNREC’s divisions of Fish & Wildlife and Parks and Recreation, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services.
These agencies are seeking to better understand the drivers of the species’s population change and behavior, such as a new study that investigates piping plover chick and fledgling movement.
More information is available here.
In other bird species updates, two pairs of American oystercatchers nested at the Point at Cape Henlopen State Park in 2022. Though this marked the first time in five years that two nests of the birds successfully hatched at Cape Henlopen, the chicks did not fledge due to suspected predation.
Also, least tern counts continued to trend lower than prior years, with the only documented nest found at Cape Henlopen failing to hatch.
