Phone call received:
"All of the Black Skimmer chicks have fledged from the colony site behind Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary so I removed the signs and posts. Not much vegetation grew inside the posted area this year but the private condo owners will want it cleared back to the white, sandy beach it was at the beginning of the nesting season. The roots of this exotic crowsfoot grass gets stuck in the beach groomer's raking blades so he won't clear it for us. I don't think it will take more than an hour for 4-5 people to clear the vegetation by hand."
It took almost 4 hours for 7 of us to clear the area by hand! Hard work - but so it goes - whatever is needed to ensure the private homeowners are willing to allow posting, signage and bird stewards on duty again next year, we were willing! Thank you to St. Pete Audubon President Judi Hopkins for quickly organizing four hard-working volunteers to help Audubon staff and FWC biologists clear the way for the birds to nest again in 2014!
Black Skimmers have nested at this Pinellas County location for a number of years and the colony is almost always successful, except last year when Tropical Storm Debby washed out the nests and chicks too late for nesting to restart. In 2013 Tropical Storm Andrea came by and sent waves crashing over part of the colony for a few hours before she was on her way. Nesting resumed and 99 chicks fledged this year.
St. Pete and Clearwater Audubon chapters posted bird stewards on weekends at this and several other colony sites in the county this summer and did triple-duty on Memorial Day and Independence Day holidays. They spoke with hundreds of beach visitors about beach-nesting birds and helped minimize all kinds of disturbances to the adults and chicks. And then, at the end of the season there was still more work to do, long after the birds were gone, clearing the way for next year.
Dedication to conserving and protecting birds isn't a passing moment for Audubon, it's a commitment - whether a couple hours a week or a couple hours per month, or more, for more than a hundred years running.
