 |
| An adult piping plover in breeding plumage. |
Piping plovers are small, plump, sand-colored shore birds. They live and nest on sandy beaches, splitting their time between the south Atlantic and Gulf coasts in the winter and the north Atlantic coast, Great Plains, and Great Lakes in the summer.
This will be my second summer monitoring them.
Last summer I had a six month internship at Fire Island National Seashore in New York. I’d never heard of piping plovers before applying for the internship, much less seen one. My first impression of a real, live piping plover was that it was very small and very silly. I found the way they dashed about on their long, orange legs to be especially amusing.
This year I have a three month internship for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Rhode Island. The plovers are familiar to me now and look, well, very plover like – exactly how they should. The only surprise my first glimpse of a piping plover provided was the sudden realization that I missed them.
 |
| Not piping plovers. |
Last summer I struggled to learn the difference between a piping plover, a sanderling, a killdeer, a ruddy turnstone, and a semipalmated plover. I assembled a careful list of traits – sanderlings have a long bill, killdeer have two neck rings, ruddy turnstones have a white diamond on their back, semipalmated plovers are too dark – that I ran through as I stared at birds through binoculars. Always the most important question: is it a piping plover? This year I know the birds well enough that I don’t have to raise my binoculars to tell if that bird way down the beach is a piping plover or not. The color, the size, the way they move, the part of the beach they’re on… I know these birds. I know their behavior, their tracks, their nests, and their chicks.
 |
| A piping plover scrape with one egg. |
Last year the first thing I learned about piping plovers was, “Expect the unexpected.” I also learned that plovers like to build their nests, called “scrapes,” in a sandy open area, perhaps among sparse dune grass on or behind a dune. This year I learned that plovers are willing to bend that rule, given the opportunity. Hurricane Sandy did just that, flattening dunes and sending sand further back than before, even among the coniferous trees that line the dunes on some of the beaches. The plovers are nesting in all kinds of strange locations, including under knee high coniferous trees, under dune overhangs, and among dangling, tangled tree roots. In some areas they’re even nesting next to the sand roads that meander behind the dunes.
Last summer I monitored the piping plovers from a distance, watching each pair with binoculars for 20-30 minutes at a time. I was primarily interested in the plovers’ behavior and whether they were digging scrapes, courting, or incubating a nest. I only ever wandered through the roped off, protected areas to check how many eggs (if any) were in a scrape. Only twelve pairs of birds nested on the entire island, so the other intern and I could afford the time it took to observe the birds.
 |
| An adult piping plover feigning a broken wing. |
That isn’t the case in Rhode Island. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is responsible for monitoring thirteen different beaches and last year there were seventy seven pairs of nesting piping plovers. Although there is a larger crew of people, the large area that needs to be covered demands a different style of surveying. Now I meander through the protected areas, trying to simultaneously watch each step and scan the ground ahead for tracks and scrapes. I watch for plovers too, but I rely on their tracks more than their behavior. I try to balance speed with efficiency so that I can minimize disturbance to the birds while still finding nests. And in the end I still use the plovers as my guide. I can tell when they’re trying to lure me away from a certain area – so I walk away from them, to where they don’t want to me to go. I can tell by how distressed they are (ignoring me, calling softly from a distance, calling loudly from nearby, flopping on the ground and feigning a broken wing, flopping on the ground and feigning two broken wings while calling piteously) whether they have a nest nearby and how close it is – although personalities vary and some plovers are more protective than others. I feel terrible each time I disturb the birds and minimize it as much as I can. My favorite nests are the ones that have already been found; I can check to see if the birds are incubating with binoculars and give the nest a wide berth while walking past.
The first nests are due to hatch this week. Soon enough there will be awkward, downy chicks roaming the beach.
