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The Snowy Plover ChroniclesEvery year, a new spring arrives. At Pajaro, volunteers spend several months helping a little creature – the Western Snowy Plover, Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus. The Snowy Plover, weighing between 1 to 2 ounces, is on the Federal Endangered Species List primarily because it has lost vast areas of its habitat due to human intrusion. Volunteers all along the West Coast participate in a program to assist the Snowy Plover in surviving and regaining its population. Over the next few months, the Friends of Pajaro Dunes will maintain a weekly log of activities and progress of the Snowy Plover on beaches at and around the Last Mile. |
Log Entry, June 16
There are at least 8 broods on the beach. The term, brood, refers to the adult male and the chicks under its care. Until the chicks fledge, or develop wings, the adult male cares for them.
The male's behavior, during this time, can be referred to as broody. A broody male will: fly around the observer; land and observe from a distance; call terwheeit or whit churr; perform a lure display (broken wing act); and show some signs of stress at the presence of any intruder, or a volunteer. The brooding adult will not necessarily exhibit all of these behaviors every time but it will act definitely out of the ordinary in a way that will catch the attention of the intruder. You may encounter the broody behavior as much as a quarter of a mile away from the chicks' location. To a plover, we are the enemy and they must check us out as soon as we appear.
The activity from from June 3-9 continued with the same intensity as the previous weeks. The volunteers' work continues at a feverish pace.
- On June 3rd, the volunteers found a new chick at ps013 and banded it. This is intereresting, as the first chick from that nest hatched six days prior. Having that much time between eggs hatching is very rare! Parents will typically abandon an egg if it doesn't hatch within 1-2 days of the first egg to hatch in the nest. That's because the adults must begin to leave the nest to teach the new hatchling to forage. Waiting too long at the nest would cause the first hatchling to starve. Lady Luck helped this family as the two chicks were born. The third egg was abandoned as it was not viable.
- The spring tides disrupted several nests. Snowies are pretty canny about placing their nests to accomodate for the variation in tides. But sometimes, the spring tides may be higher than they had accounted for. This month, the tides affected several nests. Ps028 was lost directly to the high tide as the eggs were washed away. The high tides also forced gulls to roost further inland. Their venturing further inland brought them directly near nests ps022, ps024, and ps029. The gulls were opportunistic and ate all of these eggs.
- Adoptions occasionally occur between Snowy Plover broods. A chick may get lost from its brooding male and wander into another nesting family. In that situation, the other male may accept the chick and raise it with its own. This has occurred with a ps010 chick. The volunteers will continue to monitor the spit for the ps010 male to verify if it is still raising the other two chicks from that nest.
- Volunteers use markers and a bird's banding to identify individual birds. Sometimes, they do just get confused. On Monday June 7, the volunteers were observing the male from ps017 and had concluded that he had lost his brood. They finally discovered that they were following the wrong male -- those bands are sometimes hard to identify -- and found the adult with three new unbanded chicks.
- Nests continue to be discovered. 5 new nests, ps032-036 have been discovered on Pajaro Spit. 36 nests on this spit is the most nests found at Pajaro Spit in 27 years!
Previous Log Entries
- June 3 - A week in the life of a volunteer, and the first fledglings of 2004!
- May 13 - Adult tactics to distract predators from nests and chicks
- May 10 - The first hatching, and how chicks are banded for identification
- April 28 - Compare a Snowy Plover with Sanderlings
- April 21 - Meet Ricky and John Warriner, Pajaro Dunes' resident Plover volunteers
- April 14 - Learn about a Plover's Nest called a Scrape