Co-authored by the investigative reporting desk and Brien Weiner of the South Shore Audubon Society, serving the southern half of Nassau County on Long Island, New York.
Executive Overview
For coastal ecologists and ornithologists studying the delicate balance of Atlantic marine ecosystems, the summer nesting season on Long Island’s barrier beaches is usually a time of quiet vigilance. Researchers watch as colonies of Black Skimmers (Rynchops niger)—striking seabirds known for their unique lower mandibles that slice through the water’s surface to catch prey—raise their chicks. But the 2026 nesting season at Lido Beach quickly morphed from a standard behavioral study into an eye-opening investigation of marine food scarcity, energy expenditure, and ecological interconnectedness.
When researchers fitted 20 adult Black Skimmers at Lido Beach with high-resolution GPS transmitters this summer, their initial goal was modest: they hoped to map the local foraging grounds within the back bays of Long Island and better understand what makes this specific location such a resilient nesting ground along the Atlantic Flyway. Instead, the tracking data blew the scope of the study wide open.
The transmitters revealed unexpected, grueling foraging marathons. Birds were flying up to 110 kilometers (68 miles) round-trip, crossing state lines, and braving open water in the dead of night. As scientists meticulously pieced together the telemetry data alongside marine observations, one undeniable driver emerged: the scarcity and subsequent sudden arrival of Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus), a small, oily forage fish whose ecological importance vastly outweighs its humble appearance.
This comprehensive report explores the grueling journeys of individual birds like "Michelle" and "Ronald," analyzes the broader physiological and reproductive toll that food scarcity takes on coastal colonies, examines the gendered foraging patterns of the Lido Beach skimmers, and looks ahead to crucial upcoming policy decisions that could dictate the future of the Atlantic’s most vital forage fish.
Detailed Chronology: Tracking the Skimmers of Lido Beach
To understand the scope of the crisis, one must first look at the technology that exposed it. In the early weeks of the summer breeding season, researchers captured and safely outfitted 20 adult Black Skimmers nesting on the sands of Lido Beach with lightweight, solar-powered GPS tracking units. Each device was programmed to log precise location coordinates at regular intervals, transmitting the birds’ flight paths, altitudes, and resting spots back to the research team.
The Pioneers: Michelle and Ronald
Among the cohort of tagged birds, two individuals quickly emerged as behavioral outliers, capturing the attention of researchers and bird enthusiasts alike.
The first was a seven-year-old female tagged as "Michelle" (named in honor of her hatch year and legacy), who originally hatched right on the sands of Lido Beach in 2019. While the vast majority of the Lido Beach colony maintained localized routes, Michelle proved to be an intrepid nomad. She became the sole tracked bird in the project to cross the expansive waters of the Long Island Sound, executing repeated, high-risk foraging flights to Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut. Not content with just northern excursions, Michelle frequently hunted east of the colony near Babylon and pushed her northern range all the way up toward the Bronx.
In stark contrast, a male skimmer dubbed "Ronald" headed in a completely different geographical direction. Ronald’s tracking profile revealed a distinct nocturnal routine. Regularly, under the cloak of complete darkness, Ronald made exhausting round-trip flights across the New York Harbor to Sandy Hook and New Jersey’s Gateway National Recreation Area—a distance of dozens of miles each way. Closer to home base, Ronald spent considerable time hunting in the tidal marshes west of the colony in Bay Park. This localized area is notably adjacent to a major municipal wastewater treatment plant currently undergoing multi-million-dollar upgrades designed to improve water quality and restore the health of the back bays.
The Midnight Marathoners
As researchers aggregated the telemetry data from all 20 birds, distinct temporal and spatial patterns crystallized. The data showed that long-distance foraging was not merely a quirky trait of a few adventurous birds; it was a systemic behavioral response to an empty pantry.
Furthermore, a temporal analysis of the GPS logs revealed a striking circadian pattern: many of the longest, most physically demanding flights were undertaken under the cover of darkness, specifically between 10:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. This nocturnal foraging indicates that the skimmers were willing to push their physiological limits, navigating the dark Atlantic coastline and urbanized estuaries at hours when traditional visual hunting is rendered nearly impossible, all driven by the desperate need to secure sustenance for their hungry chicks.
Spatial analysis also unveiled intriguing sexual segregation in foraging habits. Male skimmers generally focused their efforts on waters west of the Lido Beach colony, while females consistently headed east. Whether this division is driven by competitive exclusion, metabolic differences, or parental division of labor remains a compelling question for future ornithological studies.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Menhaden Connection
What forces compel a specialized colonial seabird to fly the equivalent of a marathon across state lines in the middle of the night? The answer swims just beneath the surface of the coastal waters: the Atlantic menhaden.
The Ecological Engine of the Atlantic
Often referred to by marine biologists as "the most important fish in the sea," Atlantic menhaden are small, schooling forage fish belonging to the herring family. Though they are rarely consumed directly by humans due to their oily flesh and numerous tiny bones, menhaden serve as the critical caloric baseline for an extraordinary web of marine life. They filter-feed on microscopic phytoplankton and zooplankton, converting primary productivity into rich, fatty energy packages that fuel striped bass, bluefish, humpback whales, ospreys, bald eagles, and, of course, Black Skimmers.
For Black Skimmers, menhaden are not just a menu option; they are a vital nutritional requirement during the breeding season. Data collected during the previous 2024 nesting season established that menhaden accounted for a staggering 41 percent of the total diet of Black Skimmer chicks at Lido Beach.
The 2026 Crunch: Scarcity and Reproductive Cost
However, the ecological machinery experienced a severe bottleneck during the early stages of the 2026 breeding season. For reasons tied to oceanographic conditions, localized commercial fishing pressures, and migratory timing, Atlantic menhaden were conspicuously absent from the waters immediately surrounding the Lido Beach back bays during the critical weeks when adults were attempting to provision their newly hatched chicks.
Deprived of their primary energy source close to home, the adult skimmers were forced into the grueling long-range foraging trips documented by the GPS transmitters. Yet, despite the heroic flying efforts of parents like Michelle and Ronald, physics and biology imposed a harsh ceiling on their success. Flying 110 kilometers round-trip burns an immense amount of calories—calories that would ideally be converted into chick growth or retained by the exhausted parents.
The reproductive consequences of this early-season food desert were quantifiable and sobering. Normal, healthy productivity for the Lido Beach colony—measured by the number of chicks successfully fledged per breeding pair—typically hovers between 0.31 and 0.38. However, preliminary metrics for the 2026 season recorded a depressed productivity rate of just 0.25.
The math is stark: when parents must spend hours in flight rather than minutes diving, chick provisioning drops, starvation rates climb, and the overall resilience of the colony takes a direct hit.
The Turning Point: August Arrivals
Fortunately, the crisis narrative shifted during the dead of summer. Between July 31 and August 8, a massive wave of Atlantic menhaden finally arrived in the local back bays.
The reaction from the avian community was instantaneous. The telemetry data captured an abrupt, dramatic behavioral shift: the skimmers immediately abandoned their exhausting nocturnal odysseys to Connecticut and New Jersey. Instead, they concentrated their foraging efforts right back where they belonged—in the productive, sheltered waters of the local back bays within a short commute of the nesting colony. The return of the silver fish provided a much-needed late-season cushion, but the scars of the early-season deficit remained written in the season’s lower fledgling numbers.
Official Statements & Policy Implications
The telemetry findings from Lido Beach arrive at a crucial political and ecological juncture. Protecting coastal birds requires more than fencing off nesting beaches on barrier islands; it requires looking miles offshore and down into the water column to manage the food webs upon which these species depend.
The Upcoming ASMFC Vote
In November, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC)—the interstate regulatory body tasked with managing and establishing commercial fishing quotas for menhaden and other shared marine species along the Atlantic seaboard—is scheduled to vote on a pivotal addendum. This regulatory package has the potential to significantly increase menhaden protections and refine catch limits for New York and neighboring coastal states over the next several years.
Conservationists argue that current management models fail to account for the localized needs of dependent predators like seabirds and marine mammals. While industrial fishing vessels can harvest millions of pounds of menhaden in massive purse seines just miles from nesting colonies, birds like the Black Skimmer are restricted by the physical limits of their flight range during the breeding season. If local populations of menhaden are depleted by commercial extraction before the birds arrive, colonies face localized ecological collapse, even if overall regional fish stocks appear stable on paper.
A Unified Front for Coastal Conservation
Local conservation groups, including the South Shore Audubon Society, have been vocal advocates for strengthening the upcoming ASMFC addendum.
"Protecting our fish is foundational to making sure our migrating and resident birds have enough fuel along their flyways," notes co-author Brien Weiner. "Black skimmers are a canary in the coal mine for our marine ecosystem. When we protect menhaden, we aren’t just helping skimmers; we are securing the ecological future of ospreys, bald eagles, game fish, and the entire coastal web of life."
Environmental advocates emphasize that ecosystem-based fisheries management—an approach that leaves enough fish in the water to feed natural predators rather than maximizing human harvest to the biological margin—is no longer a luxury, but an absolute necessity in an era of rapid climate change and shifting marine habitats.
Future Outlook: What Lies Ahead for Long Island’s Skimmers
The 2026 Lido Beach tracking project was originally conceived as a localized spatial study to determine why this specific barrier beach consistently outperforms other sites along the Atlantic Flyway as a Black Skimmer sanctuary. By attaching high-tech GPS units to Michelle, Ronald, and 18 other resilient birds, researchers set out to answer architectural and geographical questions about nesting success.
Instead, they walked away with a profound lesson in ecological dependency.
The health, vitality, and reproductive output of Long Island’s largest Black Skimmer colony are inextricably linked to the presence or absence of a small, shimmering fish swimming hundreds of feet below the birds’ flight paths. When the menhaden are abundant, the colony thrives, parents expend manageable amounts of energy, and the next generation of unique, orange-billed skimmers takes to the skies. When the menhaden vanish, the birds are forced to fly to the brink of exhaustion, and productivity falters.
As the regulatory bodies prepare to cast their votes this November, the fate of the Black Skimmers hangs in the balance. The data from Lido Beach provides an undeniable scientific mandate: to save the coastal birds of the Atlantic, we must first safeguard the fish that sustain them. Until then, researchers and conservationists will continue to watch the skies above Long Island, hoping that when Michelle, Ronald, and their progeny return next summer, the waters below will be teeming with life.
