Harden Fowler stood on the beach at Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park in Long Branch, nearly deserted of humans, telling two followers that they stood between life and death.
Although it was Memorial Day weekend, the traditional beginning of the Shore season, the summer crowds were avoiding the beach on this day. It was sunny, but temperatures were only in the 60s, with wind gusts up to about 25 mph.
It was a day for the birds. But that is what mattered.
“We are an educational buffer between beachgoers and endangered birds,” said Fowler, a longtime Monmouth County Park System volunteer who was mentoring two newcomers — Lew Goldberg, 64, of West Long Branch, and Kathy Melnykevich, 65, of Tinton Falls — for the park system’s beach-nesting monitoring program.
On the other side of a roped-off area, perhaps two football fields in size, least terns owned the sands. A species that in New Jersey is considered “endangered,” or in immediate danger of extinction, about 50 pairs had nests.
Members of the monitoring program — about 50 people have been trained, with about 20 as the core — record data and educate the public about the nesting, also helping to keep the public from disturbing nests.
People flying kites, bringing dogs to the beach or playing ball are examples of a disturbance.
“If somebody is playing football,” Melnykevich said, “and it goes over …”
“It’s ours,” said Fowler, 65, a Tinton Falls resident.
Other threats to the Seven Presidents beach-nesting birds are gulls, foxes, crows and feral cats, said Stephanie Egger, a wildlife biologist for the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey, a nonprofit organization under contract with the state to manage the beach-nesting program. “A feral cat can go through a least tern colony and take out 30 birds, at least, in one night,” Egger said. “Pick off eggs, chicks, adults. People are so attached; they don’t view [cats] as a non-native species.”
Park system monitors do not enter roped-off nesting areas.
A nest is simply “a scrape” in the sand, said Pam Prichard, a seasonal wildlife field technician for the state Division of Fish and Wildlife.
Normally, a nest has two eggs, sometimes three. The eggs are sand-colored with black specks, “a little bigger than a jelly bean, almost malted-milk ball in size,” Prichard said.
In 2008, Fowler, already a park system volunteer for about 15 years, and Eleanor Swanson, now 66, a Long Branch resident who volunteered for Conserve Wildlife, talked about the county starting a volunteer monitoring program. They approached park system officials, and the program was launched the next year.
Seven Presidents is the only park system area that is monitored for beach-nesting birds.
Least terns arrive from the south — wintering as far south as South America, according to Fowler — in May. Males entice females with gifts of fish, he said.
“Once they mate, they’ll bond for the season,” Fowler said.
Least terns will sit on eggs for three weeks and then they hatch, Prichard said. A month later, the babies will fly.
“Once they can fly, they are relatively safe,” Fowler said. “Once they fly, sort of your work is done. But they’re [still] fun to watch.”
The terns normally have only one brood a season, Prichard said.
Monitors stay on the job from about March, when access to nesting areas is cordoned off, to September.
“When the birds leave, we leave,” Fowler said.
“I’ve always liked birds, the outdoors, animal activity,” said Goldberg, who retired in May as a FedEx manager. “I am definitely going to do it.”
“I’m a bird person, an animal person,” said Melnykevich, a nurse at Tinton Falls Middle School. “I have summers off — the perfect time to do something like this. Do something for your community. We have been blessed in our lives. We live in a beautiful area. I’d like to keep it that way.
“I had no idea this all takes place,” Melnykevich said. “You come out here and see the length they go to to protect the birds.”
“The trained corps of volunteer monitors plays a critical role in the stewardship of critical species and managing the interface between recreational users and the wildlife,” said Ken Thoman, the Monmouth County Park System’s natural resources manager. “While park rangers take care of the well-being of our park visitors, the volunteer monitors take care of the needs of our critical wildlife. These species are dependent on dwindling coastal environments to reproduce and thrive.”
While 50 nesting pairs may seem a lot in a small area, there are not that many nesting colonies in New Jersey, Fowler said.
In 2012, New Jersey had 23 least tern colonies, from which 538 chicks fledged, according to Conserve Wildlife. Seven Presidents had 107 fledges, or about 20 percent of the state’s total.
On this day, there was some excitement.
“We now have an oystercatcher,” Fowler said, pointing to a nest at the south end of Seven Presidents.
This would be the first known successful nest at Seven Presidents for the American oystercatcher, considered a species of “special concern” in New Jersey, Swanson said as he stood in a large area occupied by a solitary oystercatcher on a nest.
The third beach-nesting bird monitored in the program is the piping plover, an “endangered” species in New Jersey.
Starting as a volunteer six years ago, Prichard has been a paid seasonal employee for the past four years. Her current coverage area is Sandy Hook to Island Beach State Park.
“It’s the best job ever, I love it,” Prichard said.
Prichard “got hooked” by happening to be at Seven Presidents when piping plover eggs were found.
“Beach-nesting birds have become my interest, my passion,” Prichard said.
Egger said monitors apparently “feel they are part of the process.”
“I guess it just makes them connected to the environment and they are contributing to viability of species,” Egger said.
“Our volunteers are fantastic,” Fowler said. “You have to be a special person to sit out here [when it’s] 95 degrees, and have possible confrontations with people who don’t want to share their beach.”