Father, daughter work to save terns, skimmers
Leftover sand restores nesting ground
Regional ecologist Dave Brinker of the Department of Natural Resources Natural Heritage Program and his daughter, Laurel, 12, visited Skimmer Island to set up decoy royal terns and photograph the island after dredged sand was added to the mass in the Sinepuxent Bay. / LAURA EMMONS/THE DAILY TIMES
OCEAN CITY -- A little more than a year ago, Dave Brinker and his daughter, Laurel, stood bayside at Second Street in Ocean City and looked out at Skimmer Island, a small, sandy expanse of land just north of Route 50's Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge.
They were upset. They'd been unable to get the necessary permits to bring dredged sand to the island in time to launch an effort to restore it as suitable nesting ground for royal terns and black skimmers.
"Dad, just make it happen," Laurel had pleaded; her father is a regional ecologist for the Department of Natural Resources. Dave Brinker had to wait one more year, but his project is now a reality.
In the last two weeks of March, sand dredged to clear the Ocean City Fishing Center's navigation channel was transported to the island, which had eroded through the years and was virtually uninhabitable for the two bird species. Both have seen declining populations due to the loss of about 300 acres of breeding grounds in the coastal bay area in the last two decades.
Dave and his 12-year-old daughter boated to the spit of land this week to take photographs of the island's new look and plant wooden royal tern decoys. They hoped the gray, black and orange doppelgangers would coax more terns to move back to the island for this year's nesting season, which starts within the next two weeks, according to Dave Brinker.
"That's why it was so important to get this sand out here before April, because there's really only about a two-week window to do this kind of thing," he said.
The island has been shaped to allow nature's storms and tides to maintain it as an ideal place for the birds to nest, he hopes. They're attracted to places like Skimmer Island mainly because they're a predator-free environment.
Many of the area's royal terns have nested for the last few years on small pieces of land north of Ocean City -- in areas Dave Brinker calls some of the most "sub-optimal areas" on the East Coast for terns to establish colonies.
Dave Brinker has worked to restore the island since September 2009, when he sent out a "Hail Mary email" soliciting aid from pretty much everyone in his contact list.
Roman Jesien, a Maryland Coastal Bays Program scientist, replied, asking him if he wanted the sand that is dredged every year from the waters at the fishing center. They were looking for new locations to get rid of the sand and figured it was a no-brainer to give it to a guy who really needed it, Jesien said.
So far, everything has gone as planned, Jesien said. He hopes to use the Skimmer Island project to contribute dredged sand there and other local areas that need filling on a yearly basis.
"We're really considering trying to continue this beneficial use of dredge material," he said.
The cost of transporting the sand to the island was about $200,000, an amount the DNR would have been unable to fund if it had to procure the sand itself, Dave Brinker said.
smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14
They were upset. They'd been unable to get the necessary permits to bring dredged sand to the island in time to launch an effort to restore it as suitable nesting ground for royal terns and black skimmers.
"Dad, just make it happen," Laurel had pleaded; her father is a regional ecologist for the Department of Natural Resources. Dave Brinker had to wait one more year, but his project is now a reality.
In the last two weeks of March, sand dredged to clear the Ocean City Fishing Center's navigation channel was transported to the island, which had eroded through the years and was virtually uninhabitable for the two bird species. Both have seen declining populations due to the loss of about 300 acres of breeding grounds in the coastal bay area in the last two decades.
Dave and his 12-year-old daughter boated to the spit of land this week to take photographs of the island's new look and plant wooden royal tern decoys. They hoped the gray, black and orange doppelgangers would coax more terns to move back to the island for this year's nesting season, which starts within the next two weeks, according to Dave Brinker.
"That's why it was so important to get this sand out here before April, because there's really only about a two-week window to do this kind of thing," he said.
The island has been shaped to allow nature's storms and tides to maintain it as an ideal place for the birds to nest, he hopes. They're attracted to places like Skimmer Island mainly because they're a predator-free environment.
Many of the area's royal terns have nested for the last few years on small pieces of land north of Ocean City -- in areas Dave Brinker calls some of the most "sub-optimal areas" on the East Coast for terns to establish colonies.
Dave Brinker has worked to restore the island since September 2009, when he sent out a "Hail Mary email" soliciting aid from pretty much everyone in his contact list.
Roman Jesien, a Maryland Coastal Bays Program scientist, replied, asking him if he wanted the sand that is dredged every year from the waters at the fishing center. They were looking for new locations to get rid of the sand and figured it was a no-brainer to give it to a guy who really needed it, Jesien said.
So far, everything has gone as planned, Jesien said. He hopes to use the Skimmer Island project to contribute dredged sand there and other local areas that need filling on a yearly basis.
"We're really considering trying to continue this beneficial use of dredge material," he said.
The cost of transporting the sand to the island was about $200,000, an amount the DNR would have been unable to fund if it had to procure the sand itself, Dave Brinker said.
smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14
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