EMPIRE, MI — It’s the start of a moms-only vacation for the Piping Plovers leaving their nests within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
July marks the time of year when piping plover chicks start to fledge and the adults start to “get antsy for migration,” according to the Great Lakes Piping Plover Conservation.
The team monitored 82 pairs of Great Lakes piping plovers this season, another new record for the fluffy chicks.
Piping Plover females are the first to leave the Great Lakes and head south to their wintering site.
Sleeping Bear’s darling Gabby, or Of,gb:X,Y, already packed her bags and set off. She and her girlfriends are leaving their male partners behind to father the fledglings.
By the end of August the males and most of the chicks will also migrate.
Gabby, had two chicks make it to fledgling age this season. She is a mother to 37 plovers. Gabby is widely known as the oldest shorebird ever recorded for this endangered piping plover population.
Gabby was seen on July 1 in a location south of her usual nesting site. The conservation team said she often makes a foraging pit stop before heading further south to her favorite winter home at Cumberland Island, Georgia, according to the conservation team.
Fellow Sleeping Bear plovers have followed suit in the following weeks.
The conservation team received reports of one plover in Anclote Key, Florida.
“She had a rough season this year where she nested at the North Manitou Island Dock and lost her first clutch to coyote egg depredation and her second clutch came into captive-rearing,” the conservation team wrote on Facebook.
The other female from Sleeping Bear was spotted in Fort Pulaski, Georgia. She, too, typically prefers Cumberland Island for her non-breeding season.
“She is likely taking a foraging pitstop in Fort Pulaski before heading a bit further south. Of,Rb:X,L had a successful season, fledgling all four of her chicks at the Platte Point area of Sleeping Bear Dunes,” according to the conservation team.
As more mommas head south the conservation team welcomes the postcards. If you observe an orange banded or flagged piping plover send your photo and reports to plover@umn.edu.
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