Good Morning Gloucester

Twelve-day-old Piping Plover Chick

This morning found all three chicks (hooray for three!) hungrily zooming around the symbolic enclosure, as well as outside the roped off area, and occasionally down to the water’s edge, but only for very brief moments. When the PiPl chicks get to the water they drink quickly before mom or dad calls them back up towards the wrack zone. Later in the morning they will journey over to the creek, where they can safely spend more time in the water drinking and feeding.

Zooming around the beach at top speed.

So this morning, five of the endangered nesting bird signs were either knocked over or mangled. Young adults lighting fires on a busy public beach is just plain dumb, but destroying the signs is just plain unkind. The Piping Plover monitor volunteers are so terrific and 99.99999999999 percent of the community are rooting for the Plovers; it’s just sad to see how a tiny minority can so negatively impact Plover recovery programs.

More food for thought–why do you think there was a Coyote spotted this morning on Nautilus Road in nearly exactly the same spot where there should be a trash barrel? Because of the disgusting pile of food and plastic garbage that sits there every night and well into the morning (or blows into the marsh and ocean), until the DPW arrives. The Coyote’s favorite meal is the the human garbage they have scavenged. Additionally this morning, I filmed super up close two crows alongside the Plover area and they were very expertly digging in the sand and un-burying food that had been buried there in the sand.

Mama Plover and twelve-day-old chicks.

Thankfully, Patti Amaral and the King family reset the signs and a full schedule of volunteers will be monitoring the PiPlover family again today. Thank you to all the volunteers and to our wonderful community for all you are doing to help the Piping Plovers survive our busiest of beaches.

Happy Fourth of July Glorious Beach Day!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWHp6Z3lYH6/