iC Sea Grant 



(36,9 / 

 n '■ lift 



May, 1984 



Mi ft 



MAY 3 1 1984" A 



coast Swatch 



Photo by J . Foster Scott 



A pinpoint landing makes two laughing gulls on a piling 



The birds 



Plume hunters plundered their 

 colonies during the late 1800s. 

 Then people began crowding them out 

 of their natural nesting habitats — the 

 swamps and beaches. A few years ago, 

 the pesticide, DDT, took its toll on 

 some species. 



But so far, they've survived. 

 Generally, they're referred to as 

 colonial waterbirds. But specifically, 

 they're egrets, ibises, herons, gulls, 

 skimmers, terns and pelicans. They 

 nest in colonies — hence the name 

 colonial — along North Carolina 

 beaches and estuarine islands during 

 spring and summer. 



Colonial waterbirds have been sub- 

 divided into colonial seabirds 

 (pelicans, gulls, terns and skimmers) 

 and colonial wading birds (herons, 

 egrets and ibises). The seabirds that 

 nest in North Carolina are migratory 

 and for the most part, lay their eggs in 

 simple nests on the ground. Wading 

 birds tend to nest in dense thickets of 

 shrubs and low trees. Some wading 

 birds overwinter in the state. 



For over a decade, North Carolina's 

 colonial waterbirds have been under 

 the scrutiny of James Parnell, an or- 

 nithologist at the University of North 

 Carolina at Wilmington and a UNC 

 Sea Grant researcher. Parnell has ex- 

 amined the birds' nesting habits and 

 habitats, and counted their popula- 

 tions. 



Ask Parnell why colonial waterbirds 

 need to be studied and protected, and 

 he will gruffly answer, "On good days, 

 I tell people that colonial waterbirds 

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