A pair of Piping Plovers called York home this season for the first time ever since Maine Audubon has been monitoring the population starting in the 1980s.
Short Sands Beach is a small quarter-mile-long stretch of sandy beach with Ellis Park set behind it. A pair of plovers decided that Ellis Park’s man-made beach volleyball court suited their needs and chose to nest there.
The volleyball court mimics some features of the beach that plovers look for, such as sandy, sparse vegetation, and close proximity to the ocean for foraging. However, the nest site was still not on the beachfront; it was set on the backside of the volleyball area farthest away from the beach. In order for the flightless chicks to get to the beach they would need to walk through an overgrown grass/weed barrier, across the manicured and irrigated lawn, across a concrete boardwalk bustling with people, over a rocky descent, finally to the sand on the beach along the ocean.
Maine Audubon became aware of this nesting pair of plovers after the plovers had already hatched two chicks during the busiest weekend of summer over the 4th of July. The town already had big plans to celebrate the Fourth including a large fireworks display down on the beach. Plovers, like most wildlife, are disturbed by the noise and the crowds that accompany firework displays. Luckily, many agencies, organizations, and local volunteers came together to make sure the show could still go on while providing the plovers as much protection as possible. Volunteers kept an eye on the nesting site during the festivities making sure no one walked through the nesting area where the birds had been spending all their time. The morning of July 5 brought good news: both adults and chicks were still accounted for!
Chicks cannot fly for about the first month of their life so that raised the crucial question: how will these chicks get to the beach to forage for food? Chicks eat small bugs and crustaceans that are along the tideline, in the wrack, and in dune grasses. The chicks at Short Sands could not make it to the oceanfront due all the obstacles. Even if the birds had made it to the beach, it did seem appear possible that the chicks could climb back up to the nest site. Volunteers and the Coastal Birds crew only ever observed the chicks in Ellis Park, eating bugs that were in the overgrown grasses of the volleyball court.
And yet somehow, both of the chicks fledged successfully! They were seen around for an extra couple of weeks, still in the volleyball court area. The town’s efforts and partnership during the season was essential to the success of this pair and their chicks. Once the town discovered the nest, it stopped maintaining the volleyball court and allowed the grasses and vegetation to grow in to give the birds more cover. Then, when we were sure the birds had left for their southward migration, the fencing came down and the town was able to open up the volleyball court again.
We are all eagerly awaiting next season to see what it will bring. Typically when plovers have success at a site they will return the following season. Will there be plovers in York again next year? We hope so, but maybe just not on the volleyball court!
