The
last piping plovers in the Wilderness fledged today. Three piping plover
families with chicks remain, but they’re all in the communities: Lighthouse
Beach, Point O’Woods and Water Island.
The
first piping plover of the season arrived at Fire Island on March 9 and I
arrived shortly thereafter, on March 25. Migratory bird and summer intern, we
both made a long journey to come here: the plovers came from their wintering
grounds on the south Atlantic and Gulf coasts and I came from the Midwest. Of
the two, the piping plovers’ journey is the more impressive, for they are tiny,
potbellied birds, smaller than a robin. Shore birds, they live on sandy beaches
and rely on their overlong legs to get around, only resorting to flight for
long distances and speedy escapes.
We
fenced off miles of the upper beach in areas where the plovers like to nest and
we waited. The male in each plover pair shoved his chest in the sand to dig
shallow “scrapes,” or small hollows in the sand where plovers lay their eggs.
Each male dug multiple scrapes, scattered here and there, that the females
tested before deciding which one to use. “Not this one, honey, I don’t like the
view.”
Plovers
lay four eggs, one every other day. Each egg is the size of a grape, sand
colored and speckled with black. Camouflage is a plover’s first line of
defense, and they do it well, but the foxes have as much experience hunting as
the plovers do at hiding. That’s why we add a second line of defense: a 30 foot
metal wire exclosure around each nest. The exclosures keep foxes, crows, hawks, feral cats, and other predators away
from the nests, but have big enough holes to let the plovers run in and out the
bottom.
Piping
plover eggs hatch twenty eight days after the last one was laid. The chicks are
precocious, like ducks and chickens, and within a few hours of hatching they’re
up and running around the beach, searching for insects, worms, and small
crustaceans to eat. They’re born with oversized runner’s legs and a round,
downy body perched on top. The chicks are clumsy at first and trip when they
run, but soon gain poise and confidence.
Growing
quickly, by two to three weeks of age the chicks tower over their younger
brethren. They’ve exchanged their fuzzy down for sleek feathers and some of the
stronger ones begin to test their wings, stretching them above their heads or
flapping them while they run.
At
the age of 25 to 35 days, the chicks fledge and learn to fly. Full grown, the
fledglings are the same size as their parents and the only way to tell them
apart is that the fledglings have black bills rather than orange.
The
last days of July are running through my fingers and I feel like summer is
ending, even if it’s hardly begun. My schedule has become the plover’s schedule
and they’re leaving me now, growing up and flying south. They’ll return in the
spring, I know, but I’ll have moved on. The plovers are leaving and soon I will
follow.
