birds

A yearly snapshot of Project milestones and assessment of progress toward meeting restoration, public access and flood management goals

In cooperation with the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, we experimentally manipulated water levels in pond A12 to examine the response of waterbird breeding effort and nest success, and assess the unintended consequence of this management action on the bioaccumulation of m

Our objectives are to determine the impact of gulls on breeding snowy plovers and Forster’s terns.; Color-mark California gulls at A6 to determine potential nesting distributions after restoration of A6.; Continue our California gull colony surveys to document current population size.

This study addresses these questions: What is the flush rate and flush distance of nesting snowy plovers in response to new trail use around seasonally-dry ponds where birds nest? Do plovers respond differently to people who have disturbed them versus people they have not seen before?

We surveyed on 22 salt ponds in the Coyote Hills, Dumbarton, and Mowry salt pond complexes from October 2009 – November 2010. During the surveys, we recorded the number of birds, species and behaviors. We also recorded the birds’ locations within the ponds, using a 250m X 250m grid system.

The project was initiated in April 2010, and to date has included four sampling events of surface water (April, May, June/July, and August 2010) and five sampling events of biota (April, May, June/July, August, and September 2010) and three sampling events for surface sediment (May, June/July, an

Adapted from the Adaptive Management Plan

The primary goals for the short-term data needs studies were to provide baseline data for the SBSP Restoration Project and to provide a scientific basis for adaptive management decisions.