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Foraging Ecology Of Black-Crowned Night-Herons (Nycticorax Nycticorax) In The New York City Area, Andrew James Bernick
Foraging Ecology Of Black-Crowned Night-Herons (Nycticorax Nycticorax) In The New York City Area, Andrew James Bernick
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Over 1,700 pairs of colonial wading birds (i.e., herons, egrets, and ibis) breed and forage in the industrialized ecosystem of metropolitan New York City (NYC). Wading bird colonies are located on 7 islands that lie between western Staten Island and Long Island Sound. The Black-crowned Night-Heron (BCNH), a mainly nocturnal forager, is the numerically dominant breeding heron in these colonies, and has been undergoing population declines both locally and region-wide since the mid-1990s. My objective was to determine how BCNHs forage in NYC's urban estuarine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments. From March-September 2002-2004, I conducted weekly night surveys on Staten Island, …