Sunday marked the late nest little chick’s ten-day-old milestone. Thank you to all our GHB and CHB ambassadors for your wonderfully watchful eyes and updates. And thank you Deb and Duncan for the late day/ early evening misty sightings.
Susan Pollack writes from her morning shift,
“Good morning all,
On this drizzly morning I found the new dad and chick all the way down the beach, foraging at the water’s edge. It was high tide, no time to be at the creek.
The dad was as protective ever, chasing off sanderlings skittering at the tideline and piping at walkers to keep their distance. In quieter moments he and the chick, as lively as ever, resorted to some thermo-snuggling.
When Jane arrived at 8, I headed west to look for Handsome and the fledgling. I found them with Mom, who seems to have lost a leg, and a plover I assume is the mother of the new chick. All four birds were resting contentedly in the sand, their bodies cocked into the wind. No other birds were in sight, a peaceful scene.”
and Jennie shares a haiku for Heidi,
Heavy cloud day—
refuge for chick and dad
at river’s bend.
A brief update from Dave Rimmer – although there were PiPls at Coffins Beach, for the first time in a long while, there were no nests. The good news is that there are three chicks in Beverly!! Thanks so much to Dave for sharing the 411.
Jill, please let me know if you touch base with Joe regarding the monofilament bin. Thank you 🙂
Have a great day!
xxKim
Some photos of our little ten-day-old chick and family
From a nest of three eggs, two hatched
The egg that didn’t
First daysThe tiny one-day-old chick that perished
Salt Island Dad puffed out, making himself look larger while defending the littlest chick from Handsome
Eventful day for our PiPls and our Ambassadors was yesterday!
Thank you Jennie and Ann for being on top of the drone issue. The City’s website only says 50 feet but I am not sure if that follows federal and state guidelines. I thought the distance was 200 meters (650 feet, or approximately two football fields as my husband pointed out), which is what I wrote on the informational one sheets. We can find out from Carolyn where specifically it is written and exactly what is the distance. Either distance, causing a disturbance to the Plovers is considered harassment and is fineable.
Last summer I watched a drone hovering over a Plover family with only one-day-old chicks. It was mortifying to see how terrified the adults were and it took hours for them to settle down. Later that summer, I observed a drone chase a Great Blue Heron from treetop to treetop. These drone operators were there intentionally to film the birds. It was difficult to observe how oblivious they were to the bird’s responses. I reported the PiPl drone incident to the DCR biologists, but the man had left the area.
Thankfully the two guys yesterday at GHB stopped after some talking to by Jennie, and the Plovers were not their focus. Thank you Jennie and Ann for seeing the issue through and staying until they packed up.
Regarding the Great Blue Herons at Good Harbor yesterday, GBH are frequent visitors to GHB, both in the marsh, at the Creek, and along the front of the beach, too. They eat everything, including adult Plovers and chicks 🙁 As much as I love them, I keep a close watch.
Sue Winslow has been by to check on the GHB PiPls. She hasn’t yet seen them but can hear peeps in the marsh. Hopefully all survived the unrelenting deluge this early am. High tide was at 6:07, precisely when the storm was at its worse.
Udate, the parent and chick have been spotted down the Creek.
Thank you so very much again to everyone for your kind well wishes and offers to help. I have an appointment with a specialist tomorrow afternoon and will know then whether an operation is needed.
Have a lovely Sunday, funday!
xoKim
Although I made this video over eight years ago its still fun to see the Great Blue Heron at GHB eating an eel.
Thank you all so very much for the updates and great insights. And for all your watchful eyes over our Cape Ann PiPls!
Many thanks again to Denton Crews for installing the posters, to Jonathan for organizing the printing and laminating, and to Duncan Todd for designing. What a tremendous contribution! Thanks to Jonathan for providing the photos, it’s so nice to see!
Thank you Deb and Sally for pointing out the Least Terns. Both Least and Common Terns were here last summer at this time. I wonder if they are nesting on Salt Island? Wouldn’ that be exciting!
A note about the age of the Cape Hedge chicks, which are approximately four weeks old as of last Thursday. The first sighting was reported on Friday June 18th and was confirmed by Sue Catalogna on June 26th. The chicks were teenie tiny on the 18th so I am assuming their hatch date was roughly Thursday the 17th, which would make them approximately four weeks old last Thursday, the 15th of July.
They look smaller than our GHB chicks at the same age, due largely I think to their diet at Cape Hedge. Chicks develop at different rates, depending on the availability and quality of food.
The sun is shining now, but it looks as though the rest of the weekend may be another overcast and quietly perfect day for chick rearing 🙂
All good news to share about our Cape Ann PiPl families!
Happy Birthday to our oldest chick/fledgling who reached the five week/36 day old milestone today!
Happy Birthday to our Cape Hedge chicks who we think are 28 days, or four weeks old, approximately today!
And last, but not least, Happy Birthday to our littlest Salt Island chick, who turned one week old today!Dad and chicks, it’s not easy to spot the Cape Hedge Family in the fog and popples!
Wonderful sightings about all three families are being shared by our great team of Piping Plover Ambassadors. They are keeping excellent watch over Cape Ann’s Plovers but it hasn’t been easy, trying to locate these beautifully well-camouflaged chicks in the super dense fog of recent days.
Hello and a haiku from ambassador Heidi Wakeman this morning:
Fledgling, Dad at bridge, Teeny, Dad,thermosnuggling Up the creek, all’s well!
Later in the morning, ambassador Duncan adds this haiku
On this misty morning Where are the miracle birds? Ah…see?… right… here.
The Plover informational posters are being installed at the Good Harbor Beach kiosks either today or tomorrow. With gratitude and deep appreciation to Duncan Todd for creating the posters, to Jonathan and Sally for printing and laminating, and to Denton Crews for installing in the kiosks. Hooray Team Plover!
Keep your eyes peeled for interesting shorebirds visiting our beaches. The summer southward migration has begun! Today ambassador Maggie spotted two Semipalmated Sandpipers and several days ago, a Dowitcher was seen at Brace Cove. Both species are returning from their northern breeding grounds at the Arctic tundra.Dowitchers at Good Harbor last spring on their northward migration
Spotted Sandpiper, left, Semipalmated Sandpiper, right
Beautiful, beautiful morning! Early morning at GHB and the three day old teenie weenies were actively foraging between #1 and #2. Heidi noted Handsome (Sally’s name for Dad) and 32 day old plumping were spotted between #2 and #3. One of the pluses about #1 is that there is a Mockingbird nest in the vicinity. The Mockingbirds are unrelenting in chasing away the Crows 🙂
Lying low in the foxholes, waiting for dad to return
CHB between 7 and 7:30 found all four–the two chicks, and Mom and Dad–feeding in the flats. Mom caught a super fat juicy seaworm and the chicks were foraging nonstop, with foot tamping expertly executed.
Yesterday I found a dozen sand collars at CHB and this morning, none. Posting a story about sand collars later today. Such an amazing creation!
Hoping so much the cloudy weather predicted will help keep beachgoers to a minimum.
I could only locate two chicks at Cape Hedge Beach. Perhaps one is off foraging on his own. Hopefully he will be spotted later today. I am so sorry to say though that it is not unusual for chicks to become separated from their family during a storm (or fireworks!).
Cape Hedge chicks
Our two-day-old pair of chicks at Good Harbor are doing wonderfully and spent the early morning foraging and thermosnuggling. One still has his little egg tooth, which typically falls off after the first or second day. The parents are awesome and going after very gull and crow in their ever changing territory. I didn’t see little fledgling and Handsome down by #3, but spent most of the morning with the new teeny tinies.
Jane shares that she and Maggie spotted a deer at GHB this morning, how wonderful!!
Today we are celebrating Charlotte’s fourth birthday so I will be home but tied up with family.
Thank you so very much to everyone for your continued dedication and big hearts.
xoKim
The one day old and two newest members of the Cape Ann PiPls club are doing beautifully. Mom, Dad, and the teeny tinies were foraging in the wrack. Dad and Mom both went after a Herring Gull that flew in a little too close for comfort. Despite the parent’s best efforts to incubate, the last egg will not hatch and that is not entirely unusual, especially for a nest this late in the season.
Our beautiful plumpling-almost-fledged-30-day-old chick, and Dad, were running along the length of the beach and too, finding lots to eat in the wrack.
Cape Hedge chicks were also enjoying the beautiful peace and quiet of a misty morning beach. Too wet to bring cameras today, but here is a sequence of one of the Cape Hedge chicks capturing a large insect several days ago.
Enjoy this perfect for shorebird chick rearing weather. Hopefully the worst of Elsa will stay off shore.
xoKim
Lots to share – Heidi wrote that she watched our GHB chick take flight for several feet. Hooray! Many, many thanks to Susan for filling in for Heidi, who did a wonderful job and is a joy to talk with, and it’s so nice to have Heidi back. Heidi remarked what a difference a week makes in growth and development.
Proud Dad and 30 day old fledgling
The chicks are hatching at the Salt Island end of the beach!!! This is phenomenal, to have two successful nests at Good Harbor Beach.
It’s going to be a tough situation at this end of the beach and we have myriad questions, namely will the family try to make the super long trek to the Creek on hot, busy beach days to forage?
Mom and Dad are taking turns snuggling the two chicks that have hatched. The third egg has yet to hatch. We’ll check back at the end of the day.
I met several lovely couples and families at Cape Hedge this morning. Everyone is super interested in the Plovers, just as they are at GHB. All three chicks there are thriving, foraging in the tidal flats and between the popples, running for the shelter of the rocks when the occasional dog comes near, and staying relatively close to each other. A smart little one completely flattened in the sand as the Barn Swallows swooped low across the flats.
Two of the three Cape Hedge chicks navigating the popples
I was hoping the Ambassadors would have a little break between looking out for the Nautilus Road chicks and the Salt Island chicks. We are losing several Ambassadors during this flux. I have either a very rotten summer cold or the flu and am not able to take on extra shifts this week. Please email if you would like to be a Piping Plover Ambassador – kimsmithdesigns@hotmail.com. You will meet the nicest, most kind hearted group of people.
Thank you to our Cape Ann community and Ambassadors. It’s going to take a village to fledge all these chicks!
Only one chick and Dad were feeding in the flats this morning. The take happened yesterday when Jill was watching the chicks and Dad up by the dune beach grass. A Great Black-backed, quickly joined by a flock, swooped in and appeared to be fighting over a bag of chips when the GBB Gull grabbed the chick. Dad tried once again valiantly to rescue his chick but was unsuccessful.
Our GHB chicks have been growing right on schedule and are finding good foraging at the Creek and in the flats. It is incredibly heartbreaking to lose chicks at any age, but especially these older stronger chicks, one at 22 days and now one at 27 days.
No ambassador should feel responsible in any way. Everyone of you is doing a fantastic job and your dedication of time and energy is so very much appreciated and worthwhile. Takes can happen on anyone’s shift and as I said before it is tremendous for the collective knowledge of PiPls to know how these takes happen and why their numbers are dwindling.
Would these two deaths have occurred if Mom had not been injured? It’s very hard to know because up until a few days ago, she appeared to be managing her injury, while both supervising and defending her chicks, and feeding herself.
What we do know is that American Crows and Great Black-backed Gulls are wreaking havoc on Piping Plover populations on the North Shore. For example, Crows have eaten every egg and chick on Revere Beach (with the exception of one nest still intact) and gulls are eating nearly fully fledged birds.
Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls are relatively new breeders to the Massachusetts coastline. Up until 1912, they were primarily winter visitors. The first Herring Gull nest ever recorded was in 1912 and the first Great Black-backed Gull nest in 1930. Because of easy access to food, they are thriving. Gulls are colonial breeders. They have pushed terns off islands (traditional tern nesting areas), forcing the terns to breed in less desirable locations. I think until we can somehow manage the gull population, the threatened and endangered Massachusetts shorebird species will continue to struggle greatly and recovery will be painstakingly slow..
This weekend I watched a couple dump all the remains of their picnic in front of a gull in the GHB parking lot. The two laughed as an enormous flock suddenly appeared, dining and squabbling over on the garbage. Humans feeding gulls and crows is exacerbating the problem tenfold and dogs running on the beach, which forces the PiPl parents to stop tending nests and chicks to chase after the dogs, leaves the babies vulnerable to gull and crow takes.
Area #3 Dad and one remaining chick, 28 days old
On a brighter note, the three Cape Hedge chicks are all present and accounted for on this beautiful July morning. I am estimating they are twenty days old, not based on their size, but because of the first sighting submitted. The family was joined by two Great Blue Herons, until a photographer frightened the herons off the beach, which may be just as well because GBH eat Plovers, too.
Sally witnessed a most beautiful PiPl parenting moment last night, and it is one of the reasons why we all continue to work so hard for these tender tiny creatures. She writes, ” I found Dad and one chick at the Creek. Dad showed off his flying skills to the baby and then encouraged his chick to cross the creek from the island to the mainland. It was a wonderful experience to watch the communications between the two of them and to see the little one paddle across the creek.”
Thank you PiPl Ambassadors for all you are doing to help grow Cape Ann’s Plover population.
Yesterday we received a call from Rockport ACO Diane Corliss and Cape Hedge neighbor Bethany that there was a chick stranded near the ramp.
Sure enough, a teeny was isolated from the family and heading up the ramp to the lookout and parking area. I scoured the beach and quickly found Mom and Dad and one chick, then ran back to the little lost one, scooped him up, and holding him securely in my hands, we then ran back to the parents.
As I approached, the Mom piped a single warning pipe that we were too close. Hearing Mom pipe, that little tiny chick in my hands called out the loudest, sharpest, PEEP you have ever heard from a chick. Hearing the little guy peep, Mom and Dad both began fluttering and piping. Knowing all were aware of each other’s presence, I gently placed the chick in the sand, backed out cautiously, and within seconds, Dad was snuggling the tiny displaced bird.
The Cape Hedge chick that became separated from its Mom and Dad and siblings after the fireworks has been reunited and all three chicks were thremosnuggling and foraging this morning!
As my Rockport friend and wonderful conservationist Eric Hutchins wrote, this year at Cape Hedge is more triage than planning. Next year there will be a managed plan in place, possibly headed by Eric and friends, and we are looking forward to helping in any way.
I am sharing this story because we all need to be aware of the nesting shorebird’s presence on the beach however, no one should ever, ever touch a chick and could receive a vey hefty fine from the federal government by doing so. The chicks wander far and wide on the beach, but in this case, where the chick had been sepeartated from Mom and Dad for many hours, we felt it was urgent to get the family back together again The beachgoers did the right thing, initiating a call to their town’s ACO, in this instance, Diane Corliss.
Good morning PiPl Friends,
Lots to talk about this morning. First a huge shout out to Jonathan for the fantastic new ambassador lanyards – here’s beautiful Sally modeling – you can practically see these from a mile away. Many, many thanks to Jonathan – the green ones were awesome but these yellow and orange customized ones are fantabulous!! and I love the little bird 🙂Sally and our new custom ambassador lanyards!
Super Valliant Mom, Dad, and the two 26 day old chicks are all present and accounted for. Mom is not putting any weight on her bad leg. But she is foraging and doing a tremendous job supervising the chicks. I want to prepare everyone that Mom may very well lose her leg. This occasionally happens to shorebirds when there is a filament tightly wrapped. They do survive, and often go on with nicknames such as peg-leg (I don’t think I could bring myself to call our Mom that). We really hope this does not happen, but I just want to let everyone know.
It appears there was only one area where fireworks had been detonated at GHB; much, much improved over last year where fireworks were detonated next to, and within, the PiPl roped off refuge.
Good Harbor Beach 26 day old Piping Plovers
The nest at the Salt Island end of the beach is doing perfectly as expected. Dad was brooding and Mom was foraging at the incoming tide. To clarify, the nest is not on Salt Island, but at the Salt Island end of the beach, in area #1. No evidence of fireworks there.
Fireworks debris Cape Hedge
I could only find two chicks and Mom and Dad at Cape Hedge Beach this morning. If anyone sees the third, please write.
Sadly, the beach was littered with fireworks debris. It is not unusual to lose chicks, and adults, after a night of fireworks, especially as these were being detonated within feet of where the PiPls like to snuggle.
Cape Hedge Beach Dad thermosnuggling two chicks
Fireworks are illegal in Massachusetts. I wish towns would enforce this, especially where there are nesting Plovers. We are going to be more proactive on this front next year. Community, please, if you see people detonating fireworks at GHB or CHB, please call the police.
Last night I stopped in to check on ambassador Barbara and there were five dogs in the space of the twenty minutes that I was there. Three leashed and two not on leashes. Everytime the PiPls went to the shore to forage, they ran back in terror to the roped off refuge. Early morning and evening are ideal times for the PiPls to forage as there are fewer people on the beach. Very little foraging was taking place while much running away in fear was happening.
Barbara and dog owner – the dog owner was lovely and departed, not all are so kind
The problem is worse this year than last year. Last year we had the bold yellow signs in the parking lot and at the Witham Street end and we are still working on getting those reinstalled. Not everyone knows the rules, especially out of towners, air b and bers (is that a word), house guests, and hotel guests. The yellow signs really help, or at least compared to last year when we had the signs up, there were fewer dogs after hours.
Free wheeling pup in front of the PiPl refuge. Where was the owner?
I haven’t had time to read everyone’s emails from yesterday but will this afternoon. If there was anything pressing, please write again.
Jill, I can’t recall if you said you were covering the 11-12 and 2-4 times today as well as the weekend? It’s tough to tell if this is going to be a typical holiday beach day, but if anyone has some free time, please stop by in case, especially during mid-day. Thank you! Hurrying to write this as the youngest member of Team Plover is getting dropped off shortly.
Again, many thanks to Jonathan for the brilliant lanyards!!
