Piping Plover Population Increases Along Connecticut Shore

Peter Marteka Nature's Path
January 9, 2009

With all the shoveling of snow, sleet and ice we've done so far this winter, it may be difficult to remember that in the summer, shovels are also used to build sand castles at the beach. And during those trips to the shore, you may have noticed a small, sandy-colored shorebird with a black ring around its neck tippy-toeing along the beach.

According to state Department of Environmental Protection wildlife biologist Julie Victoria, there were a record 102 of those shorebirds, called piping plovers, that hatched and fledged along the Connecticut shoreline last summer. Those are good numbers for a species that was nearly hunted to extinction for its hat-decorating feathers, and now numbers about 2,000 pairs along the entire Atlantic seaboard. Stormy weather during the crucial hatching time in May helped the fledglings reach birdhood, Victoria said.

"Rain was my friend," she said of the rainy weekends that kept the bird's No. 1 enemy, beachgoers, at home. "That was a critical time for chicks. Human disturbance is the biggest issue."

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