All posts by New York State Parks

Flora & Fauna

Be A Good Egg!

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Audubon New York, the state’s largest bird conservation organization has teamed up with New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to launch the 2014 “Be a Good Egg” campaign: A community engagement initiative to protect threatened and endangered beach-nesting birds. The goal of the Be a Good Egg project is to help people learn more about birds like Least Terns, Piping Plovers, and American Oystercatchers that nest and rest on the beaches of New York and New Jersey every spring and summer.

Piping Plover Chick, photo by Patrick Comins
Piping Plover Chick, photo by Patrick Comins

Between April and August every year, thousands of birds nest on the bare sand of New York beaches and inlets, including 30% of the Atlantic Coast Piping Plover population and many other migratory shorebirds that rest and refuel on the New York and New Jersey coastlines on journeys as long as 9,000 miles.

These hardy little birds are threatened by predators, extreme weather conditions, and humans. When a person or dog walks through a nesting area, the adults run or fly off in fear. During the nesting season, this exposes the eggs or chicks to fatally high temperatures and drastically increases the risk of predation. The survival and recovery of these species is dependent upon being able to nest and raise their young in an undisturbed environment.

An Oystercatcher chick, photo by New York Audubon.
An Oystercatcher chick, photo by New York Audubon.

Audubon New York, State Parks, and other partners are reaching out to visitors at New York beaches and asking them to pledge to “be a good egg” and share the beach with our native birds. As part of this project, volunteers are helping us reach out to people at beaches where Audubon is working with the local community to protect hundreds of nesting and migrating birds. To date, nearly 2,000 beach-goers have signed the “Be a Good Egg” pledge. Volunteers are an important part of this campaign and more are needed to help outreach events and shorebird surveys. To take the pledge, and to get more information about Be A Good Egg, including dates of the outreach events, visit www.goodeggnjny.org

The featured image is a nesting Least Tern. Photo by New York Audubon.

Flora & Fauna

iMapInvasives

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We’re celebrating Invasive Species Awareness Week, and so here’s some information on a cool new software that’s used to document the occurences of invasives species in New York:

iMapInvasives is an online mapping tool that collects and displays geographical data for invasive plant and animal species. Invasive species are non-native plants, animals, and pathogens that cause harm to the environment, the economy, or to human health. In the past, early detection of invasive species has been difficult, and management typically only began well after the invasive population was well-established. iMapInvasives is a tool sophisticated enough for monitoring and management projects, but easy enough to use for a citizen scientist to upload point data on a patch of pernicious weeds growing in his or her backyard. In this way, the software broadens the scope of invasives monitoring, promotes early detection of invasive populations, and helps natural and agricultural resource managers know where to look for potentially harmful invasives.

While iMapInvasives is available to everyone who requests a login, training in the online software is available, and it’s required for anyone who wants to use the more advanced features of the program. I was able to participate in the beginner and advanced training courses for iMapInvasives, provided by the Capitol/Mohawk PRISM (Partnerships for Regional Invasive Species Management) in Voorheesville.

In the basic course, we learned identification techniques for some common invasive plants and insects, including Japanese Barberry, garlic mustard, Asian long-horned beetle, and hemlock wooley adelgid. We also learned how to input our data into the software and perform searches based on different parameters which might be used by project managers.

The advanced course covered agricultural pests, aquatic plants, and some additional terrestrial plants, and we learned how iMapInvasives can be used to record treatment data and to survey large areas for the presence or absence of invasive species.

I attended the training as an employee of State Parks and the Student Conservation Association, however, other attendees were from other state agencies, as well as members of Park Friends groups, gardeners, and non-profit groups such as the Sierra Club.

If you would like to get involved, go to www.NYiMapInvasives.org and:

1)      Request a login

2)      Get trained with online video training, or sign up for the course

3)      Login and begin mapping on your computer or smartphone!

Featured image is of Japanese knotweed, an invasive species in New York. Photo by Troy Weldy, NYNHP. Post by Paris Harper

Park Projects

Invasive Species Awareness Week

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New York State is celebrating its first Invasive Species Awareness Week July 6-12, 2014!

Invasive species affect all New Yorkers – from hikers to highway personnel, from birders to boaters and from farmers to foresters. The mission of the New York Invasive Species Awareness Week (ISAW) is to promote knowledge and understanding of invasive species to help stop their spread by engaging citizens in a wide range of activities across the state and encouraging them to take action.

To celebrate the very first awareness week, Partnerships for Regional Invasive Species Management (PRISMs) across the state are hosting fun volunteer events targeting invasive species. These include awareness-raising nature walks, a garlic-mustard pesto making event, and a vigorous mile-a-minute vine removal.

To learn more about Invasive Species Awareness Week Events near you, check out the blog on the NYIS website, or the NYS Parks events calendar.

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Nature Centers

Bird Banding at TOEC

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The Taconic Outdoor Education Center (TOEC), at Fahnestock State Park, invited the community to celebrate National Get Outdoors Day and National Kids to Parks Day on May 18th this year at the TOEC Outdoor RecFest. The day started with a bird banding demonstration led by Eric Lind of the Audubon Constitution March Sanctuary.

Bird banding is a way to gain valuable knowledge about migratory birds, including data used in studies of dispersal and migration, behavior and social structure, life-span and survival rate, reproductive success and population growth. The data can be used in both research and management projects.

At the RecFest, bird banding was also a great tool for education and getting kids introduced to and interested in outdoor science and the variety of songbirds that make Fahnstock State Park their home. It was also a special opportunity for kids to get up close and personal with a migratory bird. Participants learned about mist nets, band sizes, bird measurements, and data recording.

Other events of the day included a bird walk led by naturalist Peter Salmansohn of Putnam Highland’s Audubon and workshops in orienteering and canoeing. The Event was supported by the Putnam Highland Audubon chapter, and Audubon New York’s Constitution Marsh Sanctuary, with the help of TOEC outdoor Educators.

The presenters delicately attach a band to the leg of a small veery before releasing it. Photo by Gerry Katzban.
The presenters delicately attach a band to the leg of a small veery before releasing it. Photo by Gerry Katzban.

For more information on bird banding: http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/homepage/whyband.cfm

Featured image of a veery in a mist net by Gerry Katzban. Post by Paris Harper.