Monday, August 6, 2012

Farewell Plovers


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.