I enjoy abstract art as much as anybody, just not when it’s coming from The Little Egg Cams in Plover Park. So on Saturday night when I received a burst of 600 pictures that looked like this:
And this:
Followed by some videos of very wet and tired-looking anglers stomping through the protected endangered species area in the dark:
I knew something wasn’t right at Plover Park. The inlet must be flooded. My heart sank, and I immediately checked the other camera at nest 06A (which lies dangerously close to the inlet.)
Disaster. In this case, a miserable mix of substantial and sustained northeast winds and a full moon.
We lost two nests on Saturday Night: Nest 06A and Nest 05D, Ruth Langmore’s fourth attempt. Both were in the area along the inlet I like to call “The Zoo” because the nests were so in-your-face and publicly accessible. They looked like zoo exhibits. Bri & I had even named the 06A pair “Tuffie” and “Quagga” after famous endlings: endangered species who died off in captivity.
Sadly, I had yet to have the chance to write about The Zoo and these unique nests. Or, more accurately, I still needed to decide if I should draw any more attention to them!
These nests were right along the footpath in Barnegat Light State Park. Just taking a casual stroll, you would be closer to an active Piping Plover nest than even the monitors like to be when checking on the nests. It was total insanity. Pressured by continual nest losses from a very hungry fox, these two pairs figured out the one place the fox wouldn’t dare to go to look for them: right in the middle of the public footpath leading to the beach. They correctly assumed that even the fox wouldn’t be that stupid.
Just before Bri discovered nest 06A, Todd Pover and I had been nest hunting and saw the pair acting suspiciously in the footpath. We searched and searched inside the fence, yet it never occurred to either of us to look in the path. It would be too ridiculous, even for a pair of young plovers. But that’s precisely where Bri found it the next day. I believe she said, “I felt totally sick when I saw it.”
Bri managed to bump out the fence a little, but these unfortunate birds were now forced to incubate their eggs within just a few feet of anyone walking along the inlet. They had been handling it like champs, but it’s safe to assume this was a very stressful experience for them. Just probably not as stressful as having a fox eat your eggs!
After multiple losses herself, Ruth Langmore followed suit and laid a nest, while not quite in the footpath, so close to the fence you could reach down and touch the eggs without even technically trespassing. I believe when I showed Bri Ruth Langmore’s version of a footpath nest, she screamed, “Oh, COME ON.”
For better or worse, the Zoo is now closed, and its exhibits emptied, before I even had a chance to write about it. And while we anxiously await to see if the sweet young birds, Toughie & Quagga of pair 06, will take another shot at nesting after so much wasted effort, we already know that all is not lost.
By the following day, when I ran out to find Ruth’s flooded nest, she had already laid another. And it looks like she learns quickly because this time, she’s reversed strategy completely and dropped her fifth nest way, way up in the dune, at just about the highest point in the Park! So Ruth Langmore.
Apparently, there is always something interesting to see at Barnegat Light State Park, even on the footpath. If you haven’t had a chance to visit and see Todd Pover’s Plover Park for yourself, Todd & The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey are giving a stellar presentation all about Plover Park at the LBIF on the 13th and giving a guided walking tour along the footpath on the 15th. You can get tickets at the Foundation.
And if you’re lucky, you might just find pair 06’s next nest while walking along the footpath with Todd!
Say something kind