This morning while at a local shop I was greeted in the most lovely manner, with ¡Feliz San Valentin! So here is my annual Plover Valentines but this year in English, Spanish, and French. Thank you Elizabeth for the Spanish Valentine’s wishes!
Piping Plovers (like a great many shorebirds) are a link that binds the Americas, especially in our shared goals of protecting this very vulnerable species. Piping Plovers winter over in the Caribbean and along both the Gulf of Mexico and lower Atlantic United States. They breed in the mid- and northern Atlantic states and maritime provinces of Canada, as well as the Great Plains and Great Lakes regions.
The photos are of the sweetest Plover family that miraculously hatched from a nest smack dab midway in the sand of a popular urban beach, with absolutely no camouflaging vegetation, stones, shells, no nothing! This very vulnerable nest of three made it through to hatch day and all three chicks went on to thrive and eventually fledge. Miracles do happen <3
Plover chicks begin walking within hours after hatching but they are adorably klutzy for the first day or so, with many face plants, tumbles, and stumbles as they are learning to navigate the varied terrain. The chicks hatched on a boiling hot day and the very excellent Dad you see here was protectively trying to help the chick up on its feet and push back under his wing to shield from the midday sun.
