What do piping plovers eat

Explore Taxonomy. Surprise Me. Previous Long-billed Plover. Next Madagascar Plover. Elise Elliott-Smith and Susan M. Haig Version: 1. Sign in to see your badges. More details: Guide to key entries Standard abbreviations and symbols. Account navigation Account navigation Introduction. Many of the coastal beaches traditionally used by piping plovers for nesting, feeding, and roosting have been lost to commercial, residential, and recreational developments.

Also, developments near beaches provide food that attracts increased numbers of predators such as racoons, skunks, and foxes. Water level manipulation along the major rivers may also lead to loss of breeding habitat. In order to recover the piping plover and remove it from the endangered species list, threats to reproductive success at breeding grounds must be addressed.

Availability of quality foraging and roosting habitat in the regions where this species winters is necessary in order to insure that an adequate number of adults survive to migrate back to breeding sites and successfully nest. What is being done to protect the piping plover? A variety of protection measures are implemented as prescribed in recovery plans, and include:.

Listing : In , the Great Lakes breeding population of the piping plover was listed as endangered, while populations in all other portions of the species' range were listed as threatened. Recovery Plans : The Service developed recovery plans that describe actions that need to be taken to help the bird survive and recover. Recovery plans currently exist for all three areas of the breeding range. These recovery plans are in various stages of revision.

Research : Several cooperative research groups have been set up among Federal and State agencies, university and private research centers, and the Canadian Wildlife Service. Studies are being conducted to estimate numbers, evaluate reproductive success, monitor long-term changes in populations, and determine where plovers breed and winter.

Other studies have addressed the effectiveness of captive breeding efforts. The effectiveness of predator exclosures and habitat manipulations have also been evaluated. Management and Habitat Protection : Measures to insure successful nesting are conducted each year, including controlling human access to nesting areas, monitoring nesting activity, and protecting nests, eggs and young birds from predators.

This requires intensive management efforts and significant participation by dedicated volunteers. In Michigan, several landowners have formally agreed to protect plover nesting habitat. Protection of habitat also requires constant vigilance and includes managing residential and industrial development to insure that projects are designed to limit impacts to habitat, and properly managing water flow to insure that the geologic processes which have historically maintained habitat for the plover can continue to function.

Public Education : Many States and private agencies are running successful public information campaigns to raise awareness of the plover's plight. In Michigan, residents of coastal communities where the birds nest have been contacted by an "ambassador" and provided information about the plight of the piping plover.

What are the recovery goals for the piping plover? These goals are to have breeding pairs in the State of Michigan and 50 breeding pairs in other Great Lakes states and for these numbers to remain stable for 15 years.

Goals for wintering areas have been suggested in existing recovery plans and include protection of specific sites that provide the essential requirements for the wintering populations of the piping plover.

These recovery sites include areas currently used by wintering plovers and areas that would be suitable for use. As populations in all three breeding areas begin to recover, densities on the wintering grounds will increase. In order to achieve recovery, it is necessary to maintain sufficient habitat to insure the survival of these wintering birds.

What protection does the piping plover currently receive as a listed species? The ESA prohibits the import, export, or interstate or foreign sale of protected animals and plants without a special permit. It also makes "take" illegal - forbidding the killing, harming, harassing, possessing, or removing of protected animals from the wild.

Federal agencies must consult with the Service to conserve listed species and ensure that any activity they fund, authorize, or carry out will not jeopardize the continued survival and recovery of a listed species.

This is referred to as a Section 7 consultation process. Under Section 10 of the ESA, permits may be issued to take listed wildlife species for scientific purposes, to enhance the propagation, survival or recovery of the species, and for incidental take in the course of certain otherwise lawful activities. In addition, the ESA requires that Federal agencies not only take action to prevent further loss of a species, but also pursue actions to recover species to the point where they no longer require protection and can be de-listed.

What is critical habitat? Critical habitat is a term used in the Endangered Species Act of , as amended. It refers to specific geographic areas that are essential for the conservation of a threatened or endangered species and that may require special management consideration or protection. These areas do not necessarily have to be occupied by the species at the time of designation. This means that areas must be identified which will allow for the protection of the current population, and any population increases that may be required to achieve recovery allowing the species to be removed from the endangered species list.

Do listed species in critical habitat areas receive more protection? A critical habitat designation does not set up a preserve or refuge, it only affects activities with federal involvement, such as federal funding or a federal permit.

Listed species and their habitats are protected by the ESA whether or not they are in areas designated as critical habitat. Designation of critical habitat can help focus conservation activities for a listed species by identifying areas that contain the physical and biological features that are essential for the conservation of that species.

Critical habitat also alerts the public as well as land managing agencies to the importance of these areas, but the ESA only imposes additional restrictions on the actions or programs that are authorized, funded, permitted, or carried out by a Federal agency.. What is the purpose of designating critical habitat? Designating critical habitat is a tool to identify areas that are important to the recovery of a listed species. It is also a tool used to notify Federal agencies of areas that must be given special consideration when they are planning, implementing, or funding activities.

Federal agencies are required to consult with the Service on actions they carry out, authorize, fund, or permit, that may affect critical habitat. Females are lighter in colour than males. Large females turn dark grey or silver when they mature. The American Eel is the only representative of its genus or group of related species in North America, but it does have a close relative which shares the same spawning area: the European Eel.

Both have similar lifecycles but different distributions in freshwater systems except in Iceland, where both and hybrids of both species can be found. The American Lobster Homarus americanus is a marine invertebrate which inhabits our Atlantic coastal waters. As an invertebrate, it lacks bones, but it does have an external shell, or exoskeleton, making it an arthropod like spiders and insects. Its body is divided in two parts: the cephalothorax its head and body and its abdomen, or tail.

On its head, the lobster has eyes that are very sensitive to movement and light, which help it to spot predators and prey, but are unable to see colours and clear images. It also has three pairs of antennae, a large one and two smaller ones, which are its main sensory organs and act a bit like our nose and fingers.

Around its mouth are small appendages called maxillipeds and mandibles which help direct food to the mouth and chew. Lobsters have ten legs, making them decapod ten-legged crustaceans, a group to which shrimp and crabs also belong other arthropods have a different number of legs, like spiders, which have eight, and insects, which have six.

Four pairs of these legs are used mainly to walk and are called pereiopods. The remaining pair, at the front of the cephalothorax, are called chelipeds and each of those limbs ends with a claw. These claws help the lobster defend itself, but also capture and consume its prey.

Each claw serves a different purpose: the bigger, blunter one is used for crushing, and the smaller one with sharper edges, for cutting. The Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica is a medium-sized songbird, about the size of a sparrow.

It measures between 15 and 18 centimeters cm in length and 29 to 32 cm in wingspan, and weighs between 15 and 20 grams g. Its back and tail plumage is a distinctive steely, iridescent blue, with light brown or rust belly and a chestnut-coloured throat and forehead.

Their long forked tail and pointed wings also make them easily recognizable. Both sexes may look similar, but females are typically not as brightly coloured and have shorter tails than males. When perched, this swallow looks almost conical because of its flat, short head, very short neck and its long body. Although the average lifespan of a Barn Swallow is about four years, a North American individual older than eight years and a European individual older than 16 years have been observed.

Sights and sounds: Like all swallows, the Barn Swallow is diurnal —it is active during the day, from dusk to dawn. It is an agile flyer that creates very acrobatic patterns in flight. It can fly from very close to the ground or water to more than 30 m heights.

When not in flight, the Barn Swallow can be observed perched on fences, wires, TV antennas or dead branches. Both male and female Barn Swallows sing both individually and in groups in a wide variety of twitters, warbles, whirrs and chirps.

They give a loud call when threatened, to which other swallows will react, leaving their nests to defend the area. Freshwater turtles are reptiles, like snakes, crocodilians and lizards. They also have a scaly skin, enabling them, as opposed to most amphibians, to live outside of water. Also like many reptile species, turtles lay eggs they are oviparous. But what makes them different to other reptiles is that turtles have a shell.

This shell, composed of a carapace in the back and a plastron on the belly, is made of bony plates. These bones are covered by horny scutes made of keratin like human fingernails or leathery skin, depending on the species. All Canadian freshwater turtles can retreat in their shells and hide their entire body except the Common Snapping Turtle Chelydra serpentina. This shell is considered perhaps the most efficient form of armour in the animal kingdom, as adult turtles are very likely to survive from one year to the next.

Indeed, turtles have an impressively long life for such small animals. Most other species can live for more than 20 years. There are about species of turtles throughout the world, inhabiting a great variety of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems on every continent except Antarctica and its waters. In Canada, eight native species of freshwater turtles and four species of marine turtles can be observed.

Another species, the Pacific Pond Turtle Clemmys marmorata , is now Extirpated, having disappeared from its Canadian range. Also, the Eastern Box Turtle Terrapene carolina has either such a small population that it is nearly Extirpated, or the few individuals found in Canada are actually pets released in the wild.

More research is needed to know if these turtles are still native individuals. Finally, the Red-eared Slider Trachemys scripta elegans , has been introduced to Canada as released pets and, thus, is not a native species.

Females tend to be slightly larger than males but are otherwise identical. As its name implies, it is pale tan to reddish or dark brown with a slightly paler belly, and ears and wings that are dark brown to black. Contrary to popular belief, Little Brown Bats, like all other bats, are not blind. Still, since they are nocturnal and must navigate in the darkness, they are one of the few terrestrial mammals that use echolocation to gather information on their surroundings and where prey are situated.

The echolocation calls they make, similar to clicking noises, bounce off objects and this echo is processed by the bat to get the information they need. These noises are at a very high frequency, and so cannot be heard by humans. Narwhals Monodon monoceros are considered medium-sized odontocetes, or toothed whales the largest being the sperm whale, and the smallest, the harbour porpoise , being of a similar size to the beluga, its close relative. Males can grow up to 6. Females tend to be smaller, with an average size of 4 m and a maximum size of 5.

A newborn calf is about 1. Like belugas, they have a small head, a stocky body and short, round flippers. Narwhals lack a dorsal fin on their backs, but they do have a dorsal ridge about 5 cm high that covers about half their backs. This ridge can be used by researchers to differentiate one narwhal from another.

It is thought that the absence of dorsal fin actually helps the narwhal navigate among sea ice. Unlike other cetaceans —the order which comprises all whales—, narwhals have convex tail flukes, or tail fins.

These whales have a mottled black and white, grey or brownish back, but the rest of the body mainly its underside is white. Newborn narwhal calves are pale grey to light brownish, developing the adult darker colouring at about 4 years old.

As they grow older, they will progressively become paler again. Some may live up to years, but most probably live to be 60 years of age. Although the second, smaller incisor tooth often remains embedded in the skull, it rarely but on occasion develops into a second tusk. Tusks typically grow only on males, but a few females have also been observed with short tusks. The function of the tusk remains a mystery, but several hypotheses have been proposed.

Many experts believe that it is a secondary sexual character, similar to deer antlers. Thus, the length of the tusk may indicate social rank through dominance hierarchies and assist in competition for access to females. Indeed, there are indications that the tusks are used by male narwhals for fighting each other or perhaps other species, like the beluga or killer whale. A high quantity of tubules and nerve endings in the pulp —the soft tissue inside teeth — of the tusk have at least one scientist thinking that it could be a highly sensitive sensory organ, able to detect subtle changes in temperature, salinity or pressure.

Narwhals have not been observed using their tusk to break sea ice, despite popular belief. Narwhals do occasionally break the tip of their tusk though which can never be repaired. This is more often seen in old animals and gives more evidence that the tusk might be used for sexual competition. Everyone who has visited the coast is familiar with gulls, those graceful, long-winged birds that throng the beaches and harbours and boldly beg for scraps. The gulls are a family of birds that live mainly at sea, either along the shore, or out in the ocean itself.

Worldwide, there are more than species of birds that live either partially or exclusively at sea, and these are generally known as "seabirds. The table below lists the 14 families of marine birds and the approximate number of species in each the exact number of species is continually being revised as genetic research reveals that some very similar-looking birds are so different in their genetic makeup that they constitute different species.

All species belonging to the albatross, auk, frigatebird, gannet, penguin, petrel, and storm-petrel families feed exclusively at sea. In addition, many species of cormorants, grebes, gulls, jaegers, loons, pelicans and terns feed either entirely or mainly at sea. The Phalaropes are the only shorebirds that feed at sea. The number of species that breed in Canada are shown in parentheses.

Ducks and grebes that feed at sea are not included. Of the species of woodpeckers worldwide, 13 are found in Canada. The smallest and perhaps most familiar species in Canada is the Downy Woodpecker Picoides pubescens. It is also the most common woodpecker in eastern North America.

This woodpecker is black and white with a broad white stripe down the back from the shoulders to the rump. The crown of the head is black; the cheeks and neck are adorned with black and white lines. Male and female Downy Woodpeckers are about the same size, weighing from 21 to 28 g. The male has a small scarlet patch, like a red pompom, at the back of the crown.

The Downy Woodpecker looks much like the larger Hairy Woodpecker Picoides villosus , but there are some differences between them. The Downy is about 6 cm smaller than the Hairy, measuring only 15 to 18 cm from the tip of its bill to the tip of its tail.

Woodpeckers are a family of birds sharing several characteristics that separate them from other avian families. Most of the special features of their anatomy are associated with the ability to dig holes in wood.

The straight, chisel-shaped bill is formed of strong bone overlaid with a hard covering and is quite broad at the nostrils in order to spread the force of pecking.

A covering of feathers over the nostrils keeps out pieces of wood and wood powder. The pelvic bones are wide, allowing for attachment of muscles strong enough to move and hold the tail, which is important for climbing. Another special anatomical trait of woodpeckers is the long, barbed tongue that searches crevices and cracks for food. The salivary glands produce a sticky, glue-like substance that coats the tongue and, along with the barbs, makes the tongue an efficient device for capturing insects.

Signs and sounds. As early as February or March a Downy Woodpecker pair indicate that they are occupying their nesting site by flying around it and by drumming short, fast tattoos with their bills on dry twigs or other resonant objects scattered about the territory.

The drumming serves as a means of communication between the members of the pair as well. Downys also have a variety of calls. They utter a tick, tchick, tcherrick , and both the male and the female add a sharp whinnying call during the nesting season. Hatchlings give a low, rhythmic pip note, which seems to indicate contentment. When a parent enters the nest cavity, the nestlings utter a rasping begging call, which becomes stronger and longer as the chicks mature.

The scientific name for the Ruffed Grouse is Bonasa umbellus. Both terms are from the Latin: Bonasa means good when roasted and umbellus , a sunshade. This refers to the ruff or dark-coloured neck feathers that are particularly large in the male. When he is in display before the female, these are erected and surround his head almost like an umbrella. By nodding his head and ruffs, and spreading his tail and strutting, the male identifies himself to the female and encourages her advances.

The male Ruffed Grouse is about the size of a bantam chicken and weighs about g. The females are smaller. Unlike the chicken, the grouse has a broad flat tail that is usually held down but that may be erected and spread into a half circle. The dappled and barred plumage ranges in colour from pale grey through sombre red to rich mahogany. In the east, most grouse are predominantly grey, although some are red.

Greys are in the majority in the central parts of the continent, and on the west coast most grouse are reddish brown. The colours worn by the grouse are related to their habitat: the dark-coloured grouse inhabit dark forest, as on the coast; grey grouse live in lighter bush. This camouflage helps protect the grouse from their predators.

Males are hard to tell from females at a distance, but they are larger with larger ruffs and a longer tail. In the male the broad band of dark colour in the tail is usually unbroken. The Ruffed Grouse is only distantly related to the Gray Partridge, which is a bird of open areas, not woodlands. One of the heaviest of North American owls, the Snowy Owl Bubo scandiacus stands nearly half a metre tall, with a wingspan of almost 1.

As is the case with most diurnal birds of prey—those that are active during the day—the female is larger and heavier than the male. The average weight of the female is 2. Adult males may be almost pure white in colour. Adult females are darker, their white feathers barred with dark brown. First-year birds of both sexes are more darkly marked than their adult counterparts.

Immature males resemble adult females, and immature females are heavily barred and may appear dark grey when seen from a distance. The light coloration of Snowy Owls provides camouflage when the owls are perched on snow, but this advantage is lost in summer. As spring approaches and the ground becomes bare, Snowy Owls move to sit on patches of snow or ice. No one knows whether they do this to camouflage themselves or whether they are merely keeping insects away or staying cool.

In strong wind, Snowy Owls may seek shelter by crouching on the ground behind a windbreak, such as a pile of stones, snowdrift, or bale of hay. Of the 19 species of raptors, or birds of prey, in Canada, three are Accipiters. Accipiters are small to medium-sized hawks of swift flight that occur around the world.

Accipiters can be distinguished from other types of hawks by their flight silhouettes see sketch. Like the buteos e. In contrast, the wings of another group of hawks, the falcons, such as the Kestrel or Sparrow Hawk Falco sparverius , are pointed. All accipiters generally have similar colouring, small heads, long tails, and short rounded wings.