Friday, July 31, 2009

In Search of Upland Sandpipers

On Wednesday July 29, Diogo Godoi, a wildlife technician with the NH Audubon Society surveyed fields on Fox Point for upland sandpipers with Dorene Stern and I on behalf of the Newington Conservation Commission.

Upland sandpipers are present on the Pease Development Authority runway, but there have been no other sightings of upland sandpipers in New Hampshire and it is on the State's list of endangered species. I understood that the PDA was interested in whether the species is present in other areas so that those living on the runway might be re-located to other suitable habitat.

Fox Point has some favorable characteristics in that I have observed bobolinks and other grassland species there. However, Fox Point, unlike the Pease runway, has a tremendous number of predators such as coyotes, foxes, raccoons and others. It is, after all, Fox Point. We learned from Mr. Godoi that of the 140 or so sites that he surveyed, no upland sandpipers were found at any locations in NH.

1 comment:

sarah said...

The bird call is beautiful!