Sky, Sea and Shore

Herring runs: an annual rite of spring

Hidden in the quiet forest streams and roadside rivers we often overlook, the yearly migration of river herring is a beautiful sign of spring and a vital part of the coastal ecosystem. Once plentiful across New England and beyond, these fish are born in coastal and inland ponds and swim out to sea in large groups, a food source for terns, herons, bluefish, striped bass and many other species.

In recent decades, however, river herring populations have crashed, overfished for food, fertilizer and bait, or lost as bycatch in other offshore fisheries. Yet hope remains for these foot-long fish, as the dams that blocked their path are slowly being removed or adapted to accommodate their needs. The installation and modification of fish ladders to ease their passage around obsolete dams might be the key to restoring them to the region.

According to Wenley Ferguson, director of restoration for local conservation nonprofit Save The Bay, “The fishery has been closed for 20 years, and the access to spawning habitat has expanded, but the population still hasn’t recovered.” According to Ferguson, a mixture of climate change and the long-term effect of dams on water quality have prevented a significant recovery in Rhode Island’s river herring population.

Ferguson stresses that “we need to look at these projects holistically. How do we restore connectivity and water quality? Should we remove more dams for fish passage? How efficient are the existing fish ladders, and can they be improved?”

If these forage fish have the chance to recover, it could recharge the entire coastal ecosystem.

Renewed concerns about ospreys

Among the most voracious fish-eating birds in the world, and one of the greatest conservation success stories of the 20th century, ospreys nearly disappeared from Rhode Island by the 1960s. As large amounts of the insecticide DDT were used to treat lawns and crop fields, it washed into rivers and lakes across the country, where it accumulated within ospreys from the fish they hunted, making their eggshells brittle. They have since recovered from a few hundred birds in Southern New England to several thousand, yet complacency over their recovery could be dangerous.

“Ospreys are primarily fish-eating species, and this year we saw that the osprey nestlings were dying of starvation…we were seeing signs of food shortage,” according to Sarah Deckel, director of bird conservation for the Audubon Society of Rhode Island. This trend isn’t limited to Rhode Island. Deckel explained that “researchers are alarmed to see food shortages across the Mid-Atlantic and New England coast…to see this degree of nest failure is pretty shocking.”

These nest failures could be due to the disappearance of the river herring and their relatives, the Atlantic menhaden, which migrate into Narragansett Bay as osprey nestlings are hatching, providing a perfect food source rich in vitamins, nutrients and minerals. Though, as Deckel notes, it could also be a combination of food shortage and “that after so many years of success, the ospreys are simply facing too much competition for nest sites and food.”

Samuel Miller, ornithologist for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, shared that a local photographer recently documented a rare case of an osprey catching a large shorebird and taking it back to the nest, presumably for eating. According to Miller, “we’ve had an amazing population recovery in Rhode Island, with more ospreys in the last few years than in the history of our monitoring. It can lull you into a sense of complacency; perhaps the ospreys need our attention once more.”

Salt marshes are closely associated with the New England coastline, long tracts of grassy flats home to an incredible diversity of plant and animal life and one of the world’s most productive environments. Unfortunately, marshes were filled in for new development, trampled by grazing farm animals and mosquito-ditched or cut off from tidal flow by railways and roads, and only a fraction of healthy salt marsh remains in the region. Thankfully, these habitats, which serve as nursery areas for fish and absorb wave energy to prevent erosion, are a focus for intensive restoration efforts by many organizations, including Save The Bay and The Nature Conservancy.

“We are doing a lot of work on salt marsh restoration. These marshes have legacy impacts from humans, and that messes up how the water flows,” says Ben Gaspar, restoration ecologist for Save The Bay, who described the many aspects of maintaining healthy marshes. Restoring the tidal flow of these habitats is one aspect, with sea-level rise projections showing the risk of the region’s healthiest marshes losing much of their land underwater within the next 25 years.

Gaspar explained that the best chance of survival for these habitats is inland migration, which entails “invasive species management and preparing abandoned agricultural fields, so that some of the marsh will be able to retreat inland.” A more drastic approach involving placing sediment on top of the marsh, explained Gaspar, “involves a strategic reset, like a hurricane washover, when the dune sand covers a marsh and resets the elevation, providing a back barrier for the marsh to re-establish itself.”

Reflecting on the dire nature of these threats to marshes, Gaspar lamented, “It is scary how much marshland we are predicted to lose. I’m glad I am an optimist; I do what I can.”

Saltmarsh sparrows: nesting at the tide’s edge

A small, beautiful bird with stunning orange feathers hiding deep in the marsh grasses of the Atlantic coast, saltmarsh sparrows spend their entire lives tied to the precious salt marshes we often take for granted. In secretive nests resting just above the marsh surface, they lay their eggs and rear their young within the 25-day window between high flood tides that inundate much of the marsh. Not surprisingly, they are extremely vulnerable to sea-level rise. With less and less time to fledge their chicks, and fewer healthy tracts of lower marsh to find seeds and insects to eat, these highly specialized sparrows could disappear from the wild in the next 30 years.

Ben Gaspar notes that Save The Bay works with a variety of partners, from federal agencies to land trusts and DEM, and according to recent findings, “the interventions of sediment enhancement have seen saltmarsh sparrows return to several areas.” These partnerships at sites like the Galilee Bird Sanctuary are the perfect example of collaborative conservation, in a preserve that is once again a stronghold for nesting saltmarsh sparrows.

DEM’s Sam Miller remarked that “salt marsh health is a priority in the state, collecting a lot of data to understand the factors to make the salt marsh healthier—and the sparrows are a ‘canary in the coalmine’ of marsh health,” as their banding program shows promising developments in sparrow nesting. All of this would not be possible without community support, something Gaspar was quick to point out: “People really care about these places. Most people are supportive, and I am always talking to everyone I see.”

Your beach is their habitat

Continuing the connecting theme of bird life across Rhode Island, colonial waterbirds and shorebirds that nest on New England’s beach shores are another type of coastal wildlife that captures the imagination. They certainly captured mine.

For three years, I worked at the Connecticut Audubon Society as a shorebird monitor, watching each new generation of precious piping plovers, American oystercatchers and least terns hatch and struggle to grow over the busy summertime. With fragile, camouflaged clutches of eggs laid right on the sand, these birds suffer intensely from coastal development and beach usage during breeding season, as the chances of their eggs remaining uncrushed for a month or more on a packed sandy beach are slim.

Yet despite the odds, I was privileged to watch more than 100 plover chicks survive from my little parcel of beach. And it was hard not to become instantly smitten with the adorable curiosity of the newly born plovers, the puzzling courtship displays of the terns or the boisterous concerts of oystercatchers defending their territories. These shorebirds are part of healthy New England beaches, like saltmarsh sparrows in our marshes, and the effort to protect them has united entire communities around conservation. I am thrilled to see more people becoming aware of shorebirds!

The marvels of our coastline awaken the childlike wonder I always felt when I looked out at the sea, photographing herons in the marsh as a kid or combing the beaches as plovers skittered past me. The places most dear to my heart are framed around this coastline, and the scenes of this latest episode feel like a love letter to the state I call home—a testament to Rhode Island’s Wild Coast.

Watch Sky, Sea & Shore on PBS and learn even more about the beautiful herring, ospreys, sparrows, shorebirds and other exciting creatures around our shores!