numerous publications about avian 

 management. 



It was Parnell who first realized the 

 importance of the hundreds of man-made 

 dredge-spoil islands that mark the state's 

 estuaries. These dredge-material islands are 

 a byproduct of the construction of the 

 Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and the 

 maintenance of navigational channels. 



The islands have provided nesting 

 habitats for large colonies of waterbirds, 

 most of which used to nest along the 

 undeveloped beachfront. But as many of 

 North Carolina's beaches became lined 

 with houses, condos and hotels, the birds 

 began looking for less developed real 

 estate. 



Luckily these man-made and other 

 natural estuarine islands met many of the 

 birds' needs. But now the islands are 

 posing some problems for resource 

 managers, Parnell says. 



Part of the difficulty lies in the multi- 

 habitat needs of colonial waterbirds. Royal 

 and sandwich terns prefer to nest on bare 

 sand that has a lot of shell fragments. 

 Common and gull-billed terns and black 

 skimmers want areas with a sparse cover 

 of low vegetation. 



Brown pelicans and laughing gulls 

 like dense grasses, but herons, egrets and 

 ibises most readily nest in dense shrub 

 thickets. 



Meeting this hodgepodge of nesting 

 needs requires a wide variety of habitat. 

 And maintaining this habitat variety is the 

 most critical problem facing North 

 Carolina's Colonial Waterbird Management 

 Committee. 



BIRDWATCHERS AND OTHERS 

 SEEKING AN ISOLATED SLIP 

 DF BEACH CAN DEVASTATE A 

 NESTING COLONY. 



Parnell says some of the islands are 

 eroding away, and others are covered with 

 vegetation. Only a few bare substrate 

 islands remain. 



This means the bare-sand nesters, the 

 terns, are being crowded onto fewer and 

 fewer islands. And that, says Tom Henson, 

 coastal project leader for the N.C. Wildlife 

 Resources Commission's Non-game and 



Endangered Wildlife Program, is a recipe 

 for disaster. 



"Royal terns have only four places in 

 North Carolina to nest," Henson says. "If 

 we lose one of those sites because of 

 predation or human disturbance, then we 

 lose 25 percent of that year's young birds. 

 Nesting colonies are definitely more 

 vulnerable than birds that nest individu- 

 ally." 



The loss of bare islands has forced 

 some birds back to protected beaches 

 managed by the National Park Service and 

 the N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation, 

 Parnell says. 



At locations such as the Cape Hatteras 

 National Seashore and the Ft. Fisher State 

 Recreation Area, rangers are working to 

 protect the nesting birds from people and 

 vehicles. But they can't protect the nests 

 and eggs from marauding bandits such as 

 foxes, raccoons and feral cats. 



That's why the dredge-material islands 

 promise a better, more protected habitat, 

 Parnell says. 



The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

 used to refurbish these islands with new 



C D N 1 I N U E 



White ibises take flight 



COASTVCATCH 3 



