Coal Oil Point Reserve

In 2020, we continued with the monitoring of the Western Snowy Plover (WSP) population at Coal Oil Point Reserve as in previous years. The number of breeding adults this year (51) was higher than the average (36) for our site. The wintering population size (34) was the lowest on record since monitoring began at COPR in 2001. This year, one fifth of all nests were washed out by high tides. Wind and predation by crows also had a large impact on the fate of nests and chicks. In early April, we implemented the use of predator exclosures to prevent further predation of nests by crows. While COPR had a higher than average hatching rate (55%), predation on chicks by gulls and crows resulted in a low fledging rate of 38%. The number of fledged chicks per male (0.9) was less than half the average for our site. 91% of nests (69) were initiated on the beach, and 9% (7) were initiated on the mudflats of the slough (delta).