There is a bumper sticker you’ll sometimes see driving along the coast. It reads:
“Piping Plover Tastes Like Chicken.”
It’s a whimsically offensive protest that usually adorns one of two very different types of vehicles. You’ll often see it on big pickup trucks used by anglers to drive on the beach, stuck on the bumper in protest of driving restrictions that are sometimes put in place to protect beach nesting birds. Alternatively, you’ll also find it on electric and hybrid vehicles, owned by supporters of offshore windmills who are protesting the fact that migrating endangered shorebirds are often used as an argument against them.
Either way, we almost found out yesterday if there is any truth to the main claim of this bumper sticker.
Poor Fee & Milly Grace hatched their nest yesterday, right in the worst June heat you could imagine. I’ll be honest that I actually felt a little guilty monitoring this hatch via a Little Egg Camera from the cool comfort of my air conditioned office. It was painful watching them bake in the sun for hours on the open beach, trying to shade the hatch.
You’ll never see a piping plover look uglier or more stressed; necks fully extended, eyes bulging out, bills wide open, panting like they are about to have tiny heart attacks, with even tiny bubbles forming on their face. And this went on for hours; hours during which I didn’t even want to go to the mailbox.
But these are tough little doodles, much better adapted to, and with much more experience on LBI’s beaches, than any of us. They made it through, and wow; those are some good babies.
Enjoy (?) this look at their ordeal in the video below:
Fun Fact #1: Fee & Milly Grace are the pair that Michelle trapped at the same time, and who were used to test the dream team on their ability to sex piping plovers. What’s funny about that is, apparently I need to read my own stuff, because I was constantly misidentifying them during this ordeal, even going so far as to pull-a-misogyny and accuse Milly Grace of not sharing enough of the burden! My bad. Respect. In my defense, they both looked a little uglier than usual.
Fun Fact #2: Fee & Milly Grace were terrible incubators all spring, and we were constantly finding them both off the nest for too-long stretches. They gave both Kashi and I at least 10 panic attacks that something was wrong at the nest. We both expected this hatch would be late because of this lack of incubation; but nope. They hatched right on time. Our cameras in the park provide such a unique and intimate view into the lives of these amazing birds! There is always something new to observe and learn.
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