Salters Pond Fledges Two; Supports Rarities – Lloyd Center Piping Plover 2025 Wrap-up

During the first week in August, shorebird enthusiasts statewide participated in the “Massachusetts Shorebird Blitz”, an initiative started by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, to get a snapshot of shorebird abundance, distribution, and habitat use during peak migration. The survey utilizes protocol form a larger “International Shorebird Survey”, which like the Center’s winter waterfowl surveys involves counting individuals, generating a species list, and reporting data in various forums (e.g. ebird). The results are useful for shorebird population and habitat conservation planning.

For our plover sites, this survey is one incentive for shifting focus to the larger diversity of migratory shorebird species at the end of the nesting season. This is also a time when the educational component surges, as shorebirds actually become more visible and questions from beach goers arise.  Although we don’t constantly count all birds seen, we continue to maintain an overall site and habitat-specific species list through August, and for some sites even into September when activity remains high.

West Island has high wetland micro-habitat heterogeneity, making it an especially good site for shorebird diversity surveys, and the one site where overall avian diversity is monitored throughout the plover nesting season, and most intensively during the August migration. Subtidal/shoreline intertidal, beach/dune, salt marsh (including ponded “pannes”), inlet, lagoon/mudflat and forest edge are all present, with some subset of these habitats represented at our other plover sites.

Back in May, a Black Skimmer passed over the West Island lagoon as a special treat when plover season was at fever pitch. In August the most frequently encountered species that comprise the predominant migrant shorebird community at most sites were Short-billed Dowitchers, Greater Yellowlegs, American Oystercatchers, Semipalmated Plovers, Willets, Semipalmated/Least/Spotted Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones, and Sanderlings, primarily at shoreline intertidal and lagoon areas. In the salt marsh, common waders included Great and Snowy Egret, Great Blue Heron, and to some extent Glossy Ibis. For rarities, a Clapper Rail (reported by birder) and a Pectoral Sandpiper were seen, along with occasional glimpses of the obscure Salt Marsh Sharp-Tailed Sparrows that nest in the marsh.  

Waterbirds are abundant and included post-breeding flocks of mostly Common Terns (some Roseate) that peaked at over 2,000 birds on one count. While no Least Terns nested this season, an adult and two fledges appeared on the final survey in the shoreline intertidal zone, where a wave of hundreds of Laughing Gulls passed through.  Common Eider Ducks, Double-crested Cormorants and the common gull species (Herring, Ring-billed, Great black-backed) were regular offshore sightings. On the beach, songbird activity included influxes of House and Gold finches that feed on the dune vegetation in late summer, and flocks of migratory Tree Swallows that roosted on the beach and in the cedars in August, along with other species such as robins, song sparrows, mockingbirds, and even an eastern Kingbird.      

At the Westport sites, there was a higher prevalence of the Black-bellied Plover, and near Bakers Beach a flock of Whimbrel, large long distance migrants with a long hooked bill. In Dartmouth, Nonquitt had numerous Great and Snowy egrets, with “snowies” congregating in the hundreds in the marsh near open water, where large numbers of the common shorebirds, including the highest count of dowitchers, foraged in mudflats at lower tides. Post-breeding ospreys lined the snags in the forest along the marsh edge where egrets also congregated in “rookeries” at high tide. The family of oystercatchers hatching offshore was most often seen at the channel picking through the cobble.        

Salters Pond was particularly productive with frequent close-up views of various shorebird species, including the best look at dowitchers of all sites. Rare Stilt Sandpipers, Pectoral Sandpipers, White-rumped Sandpipers and a Solitary Sandpiper made appearances, and depict the optimal shorebird feeding habitat the pond provides. Semipalmated Plovers and Semipalmated Sandpipers congregated in the hundreds along the channel on some visits. For waterbirds, on one visit both Snowy Egrets and Double-crested Cormorants also numbered in the hundreds, following the fish in the pond.

For new plover updates since the last blog, Salters also makes the news as fledging two chicks on a late renest near the channel. This both adds to the one fledged chick from the private section near Meadow Shores, and marks the first fledging at the predator-stressed beach below the pond since we began monitoring the site. Back at West Island, 12 of 13 hatched chicks fledged, a miraculous, but not totally surprising, outcome at a beach where optimal hatchling cover exists and success is high if eggs hatch.

As planning for the 2026 season begins, we thank all volunteers, beach goers providing updates in passing or just complying with restrictions, and contractors and donors, for helping ensure these important efforts continued this season, and we hope to see you on the beach next year!