There’s a distinct set of instincts you develop spending time around wild animals. Photographers, hunters, birders, anglers, scientists, farmers, and trappers have had this kind of experience. It’s knowing how to separate the signals from the noise regarding unusual things that catch your eye. Like an understaffed police department, you can’t follow every lead, but you can learn to strengthen and listen to your hunches.
With hindsight, the problem was clear just a day after they hatched, but it didn’t click. At the time I thought it was cute. “Oh, look at how Mama Hoo Hoo’s chicks are wet around their beaks from foraging at the water!”
And the next day, when I found them looking adorably soaked while playing along the river… “oh, they must have gone too deep. I wonder if Mama Hoo Hoo made them swim across again!” I even considered doing a post during the heat wave about how Mama’s babies clearly know how to stay cool; by soaking in the water.
But a few days later, when it was becoming clear they were actually never dry, their chronic wetness became worrisome.
Because we’ve seen this before. For lack of a better term, I call it “Greasy Chick Syndrome.”
Piping plover chicks are often described as looking like “two cotton balls on toothpicks”. But chicks with Greasy Chick Syndrome look anything but soft and fluffy. They look greasy, or maybe freshly dunked in the ocean. It’s tough to miss.
Case in point, just yesterday longtime reader Lisa sent me pictures she had taken of piping plovers at the park. It turns out they were recent pics of Francisco and one of the chicks. I replied, asking if she had noticed anything unusual when she saw the chick. “It looked sort of wet,” she replied. Exactly. It’s not subtle.
In a past case of this in New Jersey, a veterinarian explained that they most likely lost their waterproofing. How this works or happens is still a mystery to me, and maybe others too. Perhaps it’s chemical, or perhaps it’s more structural. I imagine that their baby floof acts much like the down in your jacket, or a sheep’s wool; lots of tight, microscopic barbs lock fibers together and create insulating air pockets that both trap heat and repel moisture. I really don’t know though.
Sadly, all three of Mama Hoo Hoo’s chicks seemed to suffer from this abnormal condition. Even more sadly, we’ve since lost two of the chicks. No one is sure exactly what happened to them, but their choice of habitat was far from ideal and probably contributed. Not only were they often found in very high traffic areas, but they were subject to flooding on every side, with only super thick vegetation to retreat into. The worst flooding I’ve ever seen in Plover Park occurred just recently in the lead up to the new moon. This is right when the two chicks were lost.
Perhaps they were overwhelmed by water, or perhaps they died of exposure, getting too soaked in their seemingly compromised, greasy condition. Or maybe someone just stepped on them in the limited amount of beach available during the highest tides. We will never know.
But what we do know is that one chick still survives as of last night. Despite looking a bit like a wet, greasy mop, it’s still adorable, still running around, still eating everything in sight, and still listening to Francisco & Mama Hoo Hoo, and generally being a good chick. The fact that it has made it this far with so many of the odds stacked against it makes this so much sadder!
But we’ll see. Of the two chicks I know of who suffered from Greasy Chick Syndrome, one was trapped and taken to rehab. Despite being known to do horribly in captivity, the chick ultimately did fledge. Unfortunately, it was never see again.
Another, who was actually one of our own Suga’s chicks hatched in Island Beach last year, didn’t go to rehab, still managed to fledge, and was possibly seen this spring at Holgate. But the bird, “Paprika,” has not been seen again, and the monitor was not 100% they had the band code correct. So it’s inconclusive.
So for now, we continue to watch, and to look for signs of abnormal development. It is going to be a tough call as to what, if anything, can, or should, be done. Piping plover don’t do well in captivity, and those that do, don’t have great track records of long-term survival. There is no clear path, or right thing to do, in this situation. Only a decision, and a consequence. And a result that itself is the result of so many dynamic forces, you will never know for sure if what you did was right or wrong anyway, regardless of the outcome.
Some people say life is unfair. I like to think of it as more, uneven. It’s not a secret, and it’s not a mystery. We can see it everywhere. Every forest, every galaxy; we can even see it in our own neighborhoods and families. This is not the chick we would have hoped for Mama Hoo Hoo and Francisco, but this is the chick we got.
Maybe its life will be short, but it is living the dream right now in Barnegat Light. A hopeful note is that it is active and doesn’t show any signs of being in pain, or even of any struggles outside of the normally horrific life of a piping plover on a busy beach.
And let’s not forget: Mama Hoo Hoo & Francisco are doing an incredible job raising this chick. If they can hang on to it just a little bit longer, they will technically fledge it, which will be a game-changing milestone for poor Mama Hoo Hoo, who has had her own share of difficult trials, struggles, disappointments, and setbacks. Despite the chick’s disadvantages and disabilities, she will have succeeded. A first for the mighty Mama Hoo Hoo.
And that just might be enough to convince them return next season, get a better, earlier start, and to try again. Every fracas ain’t a victory.
And so we wait, and we watch, and we wish the best for our very special, very wet, little bird.
Say something kind