The-Laker-Issue-Spring-2022

22 | the LAKER Jay McGowan, multimedia collections specialist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, took this photo of the snowy plover on the shore of Lake Ontario after learning of Sarah McCormick’s sighting. class notes It’s not a standard job title: piping plover technician. For nearly a year, Sarah (Forestiere) McCormick, a 2018 graduate, monitored two nesting pairs of the federally endangered shorebird at Sandy Island Beach State Park on Lake Ontario, for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Only 60 nesting pairs are known to be scattered throughout the Great Lakes. She kept records of the birds’ activity, taught park visitors about piping plovers, and set up snow fence around their nests to protect their eggs and the chicks. All this made Sarah qualified to recognize that a visitor to Sandy Island on Sept. 13, 2021, was a plover, but not a piping plover. She checked guides and concluded it was a snowy plover, common to the southern and western U.S. and the Caribbean. She confirmed her find with an amateur birdwatcher, who encouraged her to post it on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird app. It caused an immediate stir. “The snowy plover observation was significant for birders and ornithologists as it represented the first record of the species for the state of New York and one of only a few dozen from the Northeast and Great Lakes area in general,” said Jay McGowan, multimedia collections specialist at the Cornell Lab. “Birders and biologists from all over New York came out, and I met a lot of interesting people, including one of the members for the New York State Avian Records Committee,” Sarah said. “I still feel really lucky to have been in the right place at the right time and made such an amazing discovery.” What does it mean to find a bird so far from its typical range? “I have seen several prominent birders refer to this sighting as long overdue for New York state,” said John Van Niel ’83, one of Sarah’s FLCC professors. “Snowy plovers have shown up in the Great Lakes occasionally. It was just a matter of time before one was found within our borders. “Many birds wander after the nesting season in what ornithologists call post-breeding dispersal. This could prove to be advantageous as some birds might discover new suitable habitat this way,” he added. John is proud of his former student and the mark she has made. “Sarah knew her birds well enough to realize she was seeing a different species rather than, say, a light-colored individual of an expected species. Sarah’s sighting helped to write a chapter in the natural history of this species,” he said. Since the sighting, Sarah has wrapped up her internship and finished her bachelor’s degree in wildlife conservation from Unity College in Maine. She married Matt McCormick ’18, an FLCC natural resources conservation law enforcement graduate, on New Year’s Day. In late February, she accepted her first permanent full-time job as the natural resource educator for the Amboy 4-H Environmental Education Center in Williamstown, N.Y. through Cornell Cooperative Extension of Oswego County. Sarah’s FLCC experience helped confirm her decision to pursue a career in conservation. “I have a two-year education from FLCC, but it feels like I was there for a four-year degree with all the field experiences I had. I think black bear management really kind of did it for me,” she said, referring to one of John’s classes. “Working with the DEC (state Department of Environmental Conservation) and going to the bear den, I thought, ‘This is awesome.’” FLCC grad first to document rare bird in New York Sarah (Forestiere) McCormick ’18 (A.S. Environmental Studies) holds a black bear cub before weighing it as part of a health check during a winter den visit in John Van Niel’s Black Bear Management class.