Times of the Islands Spring 2022

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throughout its range. Having implemented significant protective programs in its breeding range in small areas on the Great Plains, around the Great Lakes and on the Atlantic coast, authorities in North America realised that as numbers were not increasing, the problem lay elsewhere. The plover was known to spend its winters on the southeast and Gulf coasts of the USA, but regular counts of birds in these largely accessible and well-watched areas could not account for the whole known population. A significant number were missing. Upon instigating an international Piping Plover census, several hundred were “discovered” wintering, widely dispersed in The Bahamas in 2006 and 2011, and in January 2016 a team from North America successfully searched likely habitat for this species in TCI, finding 96 birds. Since then, teams have visited TCI almost every January to look for Piping Plovers. We now know that around 200 spend the winter with us at several key sites. The area between South Caicos and East Caicos is particularly important, with almost half of our birds on the inter-tidal flats around Sand Bore, Plandon and McCartney Cays. A further 30 stay on Little Ambergris Cay. The sixth and final year of the TCI Piping Plover sur- Above: This is “officially” Piping Plover EY1, found in the TCI on Plandon Cay Beach in January, 2022. This bird was ringed on Fire Island Beach, Long Beach, New York State in May, 2021! Below: Another “dull” day at work, surveying waders on the Middle Caicos flats. ARAVNA LUCSAMA SIMON BUSUTTIL 36 www.timespub.tc
This typical Australian Pine woodland in TCI demonstrates how no native plants grow under the alien trees. SIMON BUSUTTIL vey was undertaken by a local team of six birdwatchers in February 2022. We now have a very good idea of how many of this Globally Threatened species are here in TCI and which areas are important for them. All surveys have also searched for birds “banded” with individually identifiable coloured plastic rings or flags on their legs at their breeding sites. With a good telescope or camera these are legible in the field, allowing individual birds to be sighted and reported. From this we know that the birds spending the winter in TCI come from eastern Canada and northeastern USA, a flight of around 1,200 miles each way with stops at coastal sites in Virginia and North Carolina en route. This long migration is why disturbance on their wintering grounds is such an important issue for Piping Plovers. They need to be in peak physical condition to make the flight home to their nesting areas and breed. Disturbance has been shown conclusively to reduce this physical fitness. Birds feed less and are more stressed and this has a direct impact on their subsequent survival and breeding success. We need to consider taking this species’ needs into account in certain key areas such as the south side of Half Moon Bay. This is also a bird of open spaces and many of its favoured haunts such as the sandy spits on Dellis, Fort George, and Dickish Cays are being squeezed by the remorseless increase of the invasive Australian pine or Casuarina. This tree favours the disturbed or newly created habitat at the backs of beaches, and it casts a physical shadow which many species appear to avoid. Removing it as the Turks & Caicos National Trust is now doing at Half Moon Bay will make more of the beach available to birds like Piping Plovers. There is another small plover that is rapidly declining across its world range (North America and Mexico) and about which there is growing concern. The Snowy Plover Charadrius nivosus is superficially similar to the Snowy Plover and nests on beaches and saline flats. There are twice as many in the world as Piping Plovers, but unlike the Piping Plover population—which has been the subject of intense co-ordinated conservation management and is now stable and maybe increasing—Snowy Plovers are Times of the Islands Spring 2022 37
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Times of the Islands Spring 2022

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