Only two weeks after I had returned from Costa Rica, I set off again--this time north to the Netherlands. I visited my cousin Alice and got a chance to do a bit of fieldwork with a species that nests in coastal meadows--the Black-tailed Godwit. The term fieldwork literally applies in this case, unlike in the rainforests of Costa Rica, I suppose.
Alice's partner, Mo, is doing his PhD on the migration ecology of Black-tailed Godwits at the University of Gronigen with Theunis Piersma. Alice and Mo first took me to a protected field site near Workum and Hindeloopen where we saw (relatively) many pairs of godwits successfully breeding, thanks to the recent erection of a fox-proof fence running around the entire perimeter of the reserve. They walked me through the meadow to a highly camouflaged nest containing eggs.
Sadly, numbers of breeding godwits have dropped precipitously in the Netherlands over the past several decades due in part to highly intensified agriculture. The godwits nest in agricultural fields that get systematically mown over by huge machines. And even if the nests don't get mown over, they'll likely get eaten by a predator instead--a double whammy which results in incredibly low nesting success each year.
I was so excited to spend a day doing fieldwork in Germany at another actively protected reserve where Black-tailed Godwits are producing more chicks than most breeding sites in the Netherlands. Our goal was to capture 10 Black-tailed Godwit chicks around 21-25 days old so that they could be outfitted with satellite tags that will help researchers better understand their migration ecology.
We arrived late in the evening at the beautiful house of the German researcher coordinating the fieldwork. We set off early the next morning in a large green Land Rover and spent the day, from about 7AM to 7PM, driving around the edges of fields, eyes peeled for godwit chicks of the right age. I spent much of the time on top of the Land Rover because it had a platform one could sit or stand on--a great vantage point.
Once we spotted a godwit family with chicks, someone would shout and point in the direction of the chicks as the rover jerked to a halt. Then, a team of runners leaped from the rover, crawled as quickly as possible through barbed wire fences and ran, quickly and carefully, to where the chick was last seen.
Alice and I often stayed on top of the Land Rover, eyes glued to the spot where we had last seen the chick dive for cover. When godwit chicks are threatened, they dive into the meadow grass and remain completely motionless to avoid predator detection. Since it was often hundreds of yards away, we used exaggerated hand signals to direct the field searchers to the right spot. This was an important job, because field runners often had no point of reference once out there.
Needless to say, it's easy to overlook a little godwit chick huddled in the grass.
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