Piping plover breeding pairs up, fledglings down

Jul. 28—GLEN HAVEN — Four piping plovers rested on the beach near Glen Haven during a recent sunny afternoon, easy to miss as they sat among the pale rounded rocks.

The adult among them was part of a record number of breeding pairs of the endangered birds around the Great Lakes.

Out of 81 breeding pairs in the region, 34 nested throughout the park's dozens of miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, National Park Service Wildlife Biologist Vince Cavalieri said.

It's the highest number since intensive efforts to rescue the shorebirds began.

"Of course, we'd like to be increasing the population even faster, but for such a critically endangered species with all the threats that they have, any signs of progress is positive," he said.

Piping plovers at Sleeping Bear Dunes did well in hatching their chicks, Cavalieri said. But predators like crows, ravens and merlins killed more than they have in recent years, and storms washed out several nests.

That left chicks numbering in the low 40s, with 10 orphans from those washed-out nests and others raised at a captive rearing facility in Pellston.

"We are still hoping we can meet our 1.5 chicks-per-pair recovery goal, but we are down a little bit this year in the fledgling category," he said.

Several of the pint-sized shorebirds nested on North Manitou Island and a pair picked South Manitou, Cavalieri said. On the mainland, they chose beaches all throughout the park. Birds that chose spots between Sleeping Bear Point and the nearby Life Saving Station Maritime Museum did particularly well, raising nearly three chicks per pair.

So too did three pairs that picked Leelanau State Park's beaches, Cavalieri said. They fledged a total of seven chicks in the spot toward Leelanau Peninsula's north end and outside of the national lakeshore.

Some piping plovers took advantage of Old Indian Trail's closure to treat hemlock woolly adelgids, with four pairs nesting on the nearby beach, Cavalieri said.

That's one or two more than in recent years, although there's an interesting link between people and predators. While the shorebirds shy away from too many people, more human activity can keep predators at bay.

That leads to a "weird median effect," where places with too much human pressure are bad for nesting plovers, but places with no people at all tend to have more predator activity, Cavalieri said.

Humans mostly abided by rules that excluded them from certain stretches of beach, Cavalieri said. One notable incident involved a kid chasing some chicks, which a nesting monitor spotted and reported to the child's parents. The parents were receptive to the monitor's message about the endangered birds, and the chicks weren't harmed.

Jillian Farkas, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Great Lakes piping plover coordinator, said nesting pairs at Sleeping Bear Dunes saw varied success rates. She agreed that predation was an issue, although reaching 81 breeding pairs throughout the Great Lakes was still exciting.

It's one more pair than in 2023's record of 80, Farkas said. She and others closely watching the birds' recovery were nervous after predators took a high number of adults that year.

"But, lo and behold, we exceeded them, just by one, but it's still something to celebrate," she said.

Piping plovers are re-establishing breeding grounds at places like Wilderness State Park at the tip of the Lower Peninsula, and Fisherman's Island State Park near Charlevoix, Farkas said. Birds that nested in those spots did well, and it's possible that predators hadn't cued into their presence. Nesting monitors may have helped as well.

"We're dealing with a wild species, so we do lose chicks," she said. "But we're optimistic for what next season holds, and having a lot of adult survival this year, it'll be interesting to see if the population levels are really affected this coming year."

Piping plovers that spend their summer in the Great Lakes begin arriving in late April, according to USFWS. They nest in shallow depressions they dig on sandy beaches and line with small pebbles and shell fragments, according to USFWS. Both adults patrol and defend their nest territories, and females lay three to four eggs.

Chicks hatch after 25 to 31 days, and fledge 21 to 30 days after that. Adults leave between mid-July and mid-August, while fledglings leave by late August.

Birds banded in Michigan have been spotted wintering along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

At Sleeping Bear Dunes, most of the females had left as of July 19, while most of the males and chicks were still there, Cavalieri said.

The Great Lakes was once the region where hundreds of pairs of piping plovers nested, but that number dropped to 17 in 1986 when the population was listed as endangered. Habitat loss from development and erosion control, predation including by pets, and human activity on beaches caused their numbers to plummet.

These birds have had lots of human help, from protecting breeding and wintering grounds to installing fencing to keep beachgoers away from nests, to installing wire boxes to keep predators out of some nests. In some cases, nearby predators are removed.

There are two other populations of piping plover, one that breeds on the Atlantic Coast and another, the northern Great Plains.

Great Lakes plovers are more than halfway to their recovery goal of 150 breeding pairs, Cavalieri said.

These birds will always need some kind of human intervention to survive, Farkas said.

"But at 150 pairs, it's likely that their pop will remain stable and need less of a heavy-handed management," she said.

Record-Eagle photographer Jan-Michael Stump contributed to this article.