Tag: Piping plover conservation

SUPER EXCITING NEWS: PIPING PLOVERS COURTING ON GOOD HARBOR BEACH!!

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

The Piping Plovers have returned to nest on Good Harbor Beach. Last night IĀ counted fiveĀ plovers, andĀ today four!

Above the wrack line, males are creating nest scrapes for females to approve (or disapprove, as is oftenĀ the case). The gents use their back legs to vigorously dig a slight depression. They thenĀ sit inĀ the scrapeĀ and beckon to the ladies with a continuous piping call to come inspect the potential nesting site.

Dave Rimmer, Essex County Greenbelt director of land stewardship,Ā this morning installed fencing around a possible nesting area. We are all hoping that the Piping Plovers will quickly establish a nest and the chicks will have hatched before the July 4th crowds descend upon the beach. Dave’s message toĀ everyone enjoying GHB is that ifĀ the Plovers are left undisturbed, the chicks will have a far better chance of survival the earlier in the season they hatch. If the nest site is continually disturbed and egg layingĀ is delayed again and again, the Plovers will be here all that much longer.

It’s not easy being a Piping Plover. Rest time between foragingĀ and courting.

TheĀ Plovers haveĀ traveled many thousands of milesĀ to reach our shoresĀ and areĀ both weary from traveling and eager to establish nesting sites.

What can you do to help the Piping Plovers? Here are four simple things we can all do to protect the Plovers.

1) Donā€™t leave behind or bury trash or food on the beach. All garbage attracts predators such as crows, seagulls, foxes, and coyotes, and all four of these creatures EATĀ plover eggs and chicks.

2) Do not linger near the Piping Plovers or their nests. Activity around the Plovers also attracts gulls and crows.

3) Respect theĀ fenced off areasĀ that are created to protect the Plovers.

4) If petsĀ are permitted, keep dogs leashed.

The last is the most difficult for folks to understand. Dogs threatenĀ PipingĀ PloversĀ in many ways and at every stage of their life cycle during breeding season, even the mostĀ adorableĀ and well-behaved of pooches.

Dogs love to chase Piping Plovers (and other shorebirds)Ā at the waterā€™s edge. After traveling all those thousand of miles, the birds needĀ sustenance. They are at the shoreline to feed toĀ regain their strength.

Dogs love to chase piping PloversĀ at the wrack line. Here theĀ birdsĀ are establishing where to nest. Plovers are skittish at this stage of breedingĀ and will depart the area when disturbed.

Dogs love to chase Piping Plover chicks, which not only terrifies the adult Plovers and distracts them from minding the babies, but the chicksĀ are easily squished by a dog on the run.

 

Piping Plovers Found Dead in CT. MA conservation plans eased and peaceful

Posted on by Catherine

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, Massachusetts Wildlife, announced a new statewide piping plover conservation plan last Friday.

Thank you to the GMG reader who saw the news on TV, and wrote a comment on the Disney-Pixar post. Massachusetts may be the model for North America. The MA Wildlife report includes the conservation approach implemented in Cape Cod last year, home to 60+% of MA piping plover population. Ā I don’t have the tv station’sĀ coverage, but I included the WBUR wire pick, and piping plover reports from CT, NH, and ME.Ā Kim Smith is covering the pair on Good Harbor Beach. Nesting Piping Plovers have been seen on Coffins Beach and Revere Beach.

Currently, the Atlantic coast population (North Carolina to Eastern Canada) of piping plovers continues to hold steady just under 2,000 pairs. The Massachusetts State Department of Fish and Wildlife targets maintaining 625 pairs with greater interventionĀ should the population fall below 500 pairs.

Boston Globe
YR 2013, State Department Fish and Wildlife

 

Piping plovers were not rare enough to be described as a ‘wild’ species in 1895 in Daniel Giraud Elliot’s North American Shore Birds. He wrote that where the species had been formerly ‘most abundant’ the piping plover wasĀ “found chiefly on the more retired parts of the cost where it was free from molestation…its acquaintance with man has caused it to be at the present time, in most places where it is found, a rather wary bird.”Ā TheĀ fattened birds were “palatable, yet sometimes sedgy in flavor.”Ā Skunks and other predators, influx in summer population, and loss of habitat were concerns.Ā Plastic trash is a striking difference now. At least we don’t eat them.

CONNECTICUT

Three Piping Plovers were recently killed in their nesting habitat at Griswold Point in Old Lyme CT. It’s believed a fourth wasĀ intentionally stepped on in Bluff Point State Park in Groton, CT. “People ignore the signs.”

Screenshot_071116_082958_AM.jpg
2 minute video

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Conservation monitors the piping plovers. Ā The Connecticut Audubon Society doesn’t maintain piping plover information, however they do have an incredible osprey project to report. Tom AndersenĀ told meĀ that theĀ CT Audubon Society hasĀ built up a network of more than 300 volunteers to find and monitor osprey. An intern has plotted the work of these citizen scientists on this Osprey Nation map. Nests have grown from 200 to 500. I think I’m inspired to do a map of the piping plovers if someone in MA or in the state office hasn’t done it already!

MASSACHUSETTS –Ā CAPE COD

Massachusetts may be the national model.

Read WBUR on the MA Wildlife press release with a focus on NausetĀ New Plan Allows Beachgoers More Room While Protecting Piping Plovers

David Abel wrote about it back in January for the Boston Globe (January 21, 2016) Ā Beachgoers may get break as plovers rebound:Ā Ā 

“In Orleans, after years of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in fees for stickers to drive on town beaches, local officials independently sought and obtained a federal waiver last year to allow a limited number of vehicles back on the beach.”Ā 

“For Russ Hopping, who oversees about 27 miles of beaches from Ipswich to Nantucket for the Trustees of Reservations, a federal waiver would mean more than getting rid of some fences on their beaches. It would mean fewer headaches.Ā With some 60 plover pairs on their beaches last summer, Hopping hopes new flexibility would translate into fewer complaints and greater protection for the birds.Ā 

“That weā€™ve reached the point that this opportunity even exists represents a conservation success story for Massachusetts,”Ā he said.

Nauset WBUR
photographĀ Jesse Costa/WBUR

South shore and Plum Island stories have beenĀ contentious (e.g. WBZ’s 2010Ā story in Plymouth Are they protecting the ploversĀ or their view?Ā )

The town of Duxbury canceled their annual 4th of July beach bonfire because piping plover pairs returned and were nesting year after year. “Most Duxbury residents said they understand the need to cancel the bonfire for the bird. Since the birds return every year, the committee said next year theyā€™ll consider a new tradition of having the beach bonfire at another time.”

NEW HAMPSHIRE

There are 7 pairs Ā reported in NH right now in Seabrook and Hampton. “Since protection efforts began in New Hampshire in 1997 through 2015, 99 nesting pairs of plovers have fledged 127 chicks on the stateā€™s seacoast.”

MAINE

The Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge and Maine Audubon Ā report Piping Plovers first sightings in 2016 on beaches at Kennebunkport, Kennebunk and Old Orchard Beach. They’re sending an estimate about nests.

MASSACHUSETTS- CAPE ANN- Gloucester

search forĀ Kim Smith’s exceptionalĀ documentation and photographs on Good Morning Gloucester about the one nesting pair on Good Harbor Beach

more on GMG: