Co-written by investigative environmental journalists 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, the sight of a Black Skimmer slicing across the surface of a back bay at dusk is a masterclass in aerodynamic grace. With a uniquely elongated lower mandible, these striking, gull-like seabirds skim the water’s surface, snapping up small fish with pinpoint precision. But this past summer, researchers monitoring a prominent colony of nesting Black Skimmers at Lido Beach on Long Island, New York, noticed something unsettling. The birds were missing from their usual local feeding grounds, embarking on exhausting, marathon foraging flights that defied standard behavioral models.
To solve this avian mystery, researchers fitted 20 adult Black Skimmers with advanced GPS transmitters, initially hoping to map local habitat use within the shallow back bays of Nassau County. Instead, the tracking data blew the lid off a much larger, more systemic ecological story: a severe local food scarcity crisis driven by the fluctuating availability of a humble yet vital forage fish—the Atlantic menhaden.
The tracking results revealed that these parent birds were pushing their bodies to the absolute limit, flying up to 110 kilometers (68 miles) one way across state lines to New Jersey’s Gateway National Recreation Area just to secure a single meal for their hungry chicks. Among the most striking revelations of the project were the distinct behavioral profiles of individual birds, such as a female named "Michelle" who crossed the treacherous waters of the Long Island Sound into Connecticut, and a male named "Ronald" who executed nightly runs to Sandy Hook while utilizing degraded local marshes.
As conservationists and scientists pieced the telemetry data together, a single, unmistakable environmental driver emerged: the presence or absence of Atlantic menhaden. When these oil-rich baitfish finally flooded local waters in late summer, the exhausted skimmers immediately abandoned their grueling long-distance commutes and returned to the productive back bays closer to home.
However, this temporary bounty came too late to entirely prevent ecological damage. The early-season shortage of menhaden inflicted a heavy toll on the colony’s reproductive success, dragging productivity down to levels that concern local conservation biologists. With critical regulatory decisions looming on the horizon—specifically an upcoming vote by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) regarding long-term menhaden catch limits—this study serves as an urgent wake-up call. The survival of Long Island’s largest Black Skimmer colony, alongside a host of other iconic coastal predators like ospreys and bald eagles, is intimately bound to the management of a single, highly contested species of fish.
Detailed Chronology: Tracking the Skimmers of Lido Beach
Setting the Stage: The 2024–2026 Research Initiative
The summer research deployment at Lido Beach was conceived with a straightforward scientific objective: to understand what makes this specific barrier island stretch such a successful nesting ground for Black Skimmers relative to other historically productive sites along the Atlantic Flyway. Long Island supports the largest concentration of breeding Black Skimmers in New York State, making Lido Beach a crucial stronghold for a species listed as a Bird of Conservation Concern.
To uncover the micro-habitats and daily rhythms driving this success, a coalition of researchers and wildlife specialists captured and safely fitted 20 adult Black Skimmers with high-precision solar-powered GPS telemetry units. These lightweight backpack transmitters were designed to log precise geographical coordinates, flight speeds, and altitude data at regular intervals, transmitting the data back to researchers in real time.
Initially, expectations were modest. Biologists anticipated mapping local foraging hotspots within the sheltered salt marshes, tidal creeks, and back bays immediately adjacent to the Lido Beach colony. What they found, however, completely upended their assumptions about the birds’ daily ranges and energetic constraints.
The Epic Journeys of Michelle and Ronald
As the GPS units began pinging back coordinates, the telemetry maps revealed a fascinating tapestry of high-stakes aerial navigation, highlighted by the distinct exploits of two standout individuals: Michelle and Ronald.
Michelle (Obama): A seasoned seven-year-old female Black Skimmer that originally hatched right at the Lido Beach colony in 2019, Michelle quickly established herself as the most adventurous traveler in the study group. While the vast majority of her colony-mates confined their flights to Long Island waters, Michelle shattered norms. She became the sole tracked bird to cross the formidable expanse of the Long Island Sound, executing multiple foraging runs to the urban and industrial coastlines of Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut. Not content with northern expeditions alone, Michelle routinely patrolled waters east of the colony near Babylon, while occasionally pushing north toward the urbanized shores of the Bronx. Her erratic, wide-ranging flights painted a picture of a desperate mother scavenging every available aquatic niche to feed her developing chicks.
Ronald (Reagan): Operating with an entirely different strategy, Ronald carved out a nocturnal and western-skewed route. This male skimmer regularly undertook grueling, late-night flights across New York Harbor to the shores of Sandy Hook and New Jersey’s Gateway National Recreation Area—a distance pushing past the 100-kilometer mark. Closer to home, Ronald utilized the salt marshes west of the colony in Bay Park. Interestingly, this local foraging zone sits directly adjacent to a major municipal wastewater treatment plant, a facility currently undergoing massive infrastructure upgrades designed to improve water quality and restore the ecological health of the back bays.
Behavioral Patterns and the Midnight Shifts
When data analysts aggregated the telemetry from all 20 tagged birds, clear behavioral and demographic trends materialized. A pronounced sexual segregation in foraging strategy became immediately apparent: male skimmers consistently headed west toward New York City and New Jersey waters, whereas female skimmers predominantly cast their search patterns eastward along the South Shore of Long Island.
Even more striking was the temporal distribution of these epic flights. A vast majority of the longest, most energetically expensive foraging trips did not occur during daylight hours. Instead, they took place under the cover of absolute darkness, clustered heavily between 10:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m.
This nocturnal habit is partially tied to the natural behavior of the target prey species. Many small forage fish move closer to the surface under the cover of darkness to feed on plankton, making them vulnerable to the unique surface-skimming feeding mechanics of Black Skimmers. However, the sheer distance traveled during these dark hours underscored a harsher reality: local waters were simply devoid of adequate food, forcing parents to risk exhaustion and predation hazards by flying through the dead of night to distant feeding grounds.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Menhaden Connection
The Ecological Engine of the Atlantic
To understand the underlying cause of the skimmers’ erratic behavior, marine scientists had to look beneath the surface of the water to examine the population dynamics of Brevoortia tyrannus, commonly known as the Atlantic menhaden or bunker.
Menhaden are oily, schooling fish that occupy a foundational role in the marine food web of the Atlantic Northwest. Often described by marine biologists as "the most important fish in the sea," menhaden filter massive quantities of phytoplankton, converting microscopic marine life into dense, calorie-rich protein blocks. They serve as the primary dietary foundation for virtually every major coastal predator in the region, including striped bass, bluefish, humpback whales, bottlenose dolphins, ospreys, bald eagles, and, of course, colonial seabirds like the Black Skimmer.
For a breeding Black Skimmer, prey quality is just as important as prey quantity. Raising chicks requires a dense, reliable caloric intake to support rapid skeletal and feather growth. Historically, Atlantic menhaden filled this nutritional slot perfectly. Data collected during the 2024 breeding season established that menhaden accounted for an astounding 41 percent of the total diet of Black Skimmer chicks at the Lido Beach colony.
The 2026 Deficiency and Its Cost
However, the ecological baseline shifted heading into the 2026 breeding season. During the critical early weeks of nesting—when adult birds are paired, incubating eggs, and feeding newly hatched, highly vulnerable chicks—local waters around Nassau County experienced a profound, inexplicable scarcity of Atlantic menhaden.
Without their preferred, high-lipid staple food, the adult skimmers were forced to dramatically alter their foraging strategies. The GPS data captured the direct fallout of this shortfall: birds flying up to 110 kilometers away, burning vast amounts of daily caloric energy just to source scattered, subpar food alternatives for their young.
The turning point occurred in mid-summer. Between July 31 and August 8, large schools of Atlantic menhaden suddenly returned to the local waters of the back bays in abundance. The behavioral response from the tagged skimmers was instantaneous and dramatic. Telemetry tracks showed the birds abandoning their exhausting cross-sound voyages and nocturnal marathon flights almost overnight, redirecting their foraging efforts back into the local back bays within a short radius of the Lido Beach colony.
Yet, this eleventh-hour biological rescue could not completely erase the damage done during the early nesting deficit. Avian productivity—measured as the average number of chicks successfully fledged per breeding pair—revealed a noticeable decline. While historical productivity for a healthy, stable Black Skimmer colony typically hovers between 0.31 and 0.38 fledglings per pair, the productivity metrics for the Lido Beach colony plummeted to 0.25 in 2026.
For a long-lived seabird species with naturally low annual reproductive rates, a drop of this magnitude acts as a warning sign. Consecutive years of early-season food deficits could easily tip a stable local population into a steep, irreversible demographic decline.
Official Statements and Conservation Advocacy
The Voice of the Audubon Society
The findings from the Lido Beach tracking project have galvanized regional conservation groups, transforming what started as an academic telemetry study into an urgent advocacy campaign. Brien Weiner and his colleagues at the South Shore Audubon Society have been at the forefront of translating these scientific insights into actionable policy recommendations.
"When you look at the telemetry tracks of birds like Michelle and Ronald, you are looking at the visible strain of an ecosystem pushed out of balance," Weiner noted during a briefing on the project. "These birds are incredible athletes, but they should not have to fly 68 miles in the dead of night just to find a meal for their chicks. The absence of menhaden early in the season laid bare how fragile our coastal food webs have become under current fishing pressures."
Conservationists emphasize that the fate of the Black Skimmer is inextricably linked to the broader health of the Atlantic coastal ecosystem. Because menhaden are heavily targeted by commercial fishing operations—primarily harvested for reduction into fishmeal, fertilizer, and bait for lobster and crab fisheries—their local abundance is heavily influenced by regulatory quotas rather than purely natural population cycles.
Upcoming Regulatory Battles: The ASMFC Vote
The scientific alarm bells raised by the Long Island tracking study arrive at a critical regulatory juncture. In November, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC)—the interstate management body charged with establishing commercial and recreational fishing limits for menhaden along the Atlantic seaboard—is scheduled to vote on a major new policy addendum.
This upcoming addendum could fundamentally reshape menhaden protections for the next several years, setting regional catch caps that account for the ecological needs of dependent predators. Conservationists across New York, New Jersey, and neighboring coastal states are mobilizing to urge the ASMFC to adopt precautionary management options that leave more fish in the water.
"Protecting our forage fish is not just about keeping a few local bird watchers happy; it is a fundamental prerequisite for maintaining the biological integrity of the entire Atlantic Flyway," stated an environmental coalition representative following the release of the GPS data. "When we protect menhaden, we are protecting a cascading web of life. These proposed regulatory protections will directly safeguard not only Black Skimmers, but iconic apex predators like ospreys, bald eagles, and commercially vital game fish that define our coastal heritage."
Future Outlook: Securing the Skies and Bays of Long Island
The summer of 2026 will be remembered by local ornithologists as a watershed moment for understanding the secret lives of Long Island’s coastal seabirds. The deployment of 20 GPS transmitters at Lido Beach transformed abstract conservation theories into vivid, hard data, proving that the health of a major colonial seabird population can hinge entirely on the presence or absence of a small, silver fish swimming hundreds of feet below the birds’ flight paths.
As researchers prepare to analyze subsequent waves of telemetry data, the focus is shifting rapidly from pure science to applied conservation. The challenges facing the Lido Beach Black Skimmers are emblematic of broader environmental stressors confronting coastal ecosystems worldwide: habitat fragmentation, changing water temperatures, shifting prey distributions, and industrial fishing pressures.
Addressing these multi-layered threats will require a coordinated, cross-jurisdictional approach. Locally, ongoing municipal investments—such as the wastewater treatment plant upgrades in Bay Park—are steadily improving water quality in the back bays, fostering healthier marine habitats where baitfish and crustaceans can thrive. Regionally and federally, upcoming regulatory milestones like the ASMFC menhaden vote provide an immediate legislative vehicle to translate scientific warnings into concrete ecological safeguards.
For Michelle, Ronald, and the countless other migratory birds that rely on the sheltered barrier islands and rich estuaries of the Atlantic Flyway, the stakes could not be higher. Ensuring that our coastal waters teem with adequate forage fish is the ultimate litmus test of our commitment to marine stewardship. By protecting the menhaden, we secure not only the future of a struggling seabird colony, but the enduring vibrancy of our shared coastal environment for generations to come.
