Barnegat Light SP 7/16--Piping Plover

Today, looking for something new for the year, I headed over to Long Beach Island. Huge swatch of the beach at Barnegat Light State Park were stringed off to give the breeding birds there half a chance. Running in one of the furrows along the corridor that was left open to the beach I saw a tiny fuzzy gray bird--a baby Piping Plover, my first of the year and my first one in Ocean County. I lost sight of it when someone walked by. When I got up to where he was, he was reading the warning sign; he asked me if I'd seen any of the plovers. I told him  he'd scared one away. He didn't seem broken up about, but later, while I was looking at the bird again and also, presumably, its parent, he called out that there were two more birds behind me. These also were juveniles. I guess he was pleased that he'd found them.

The nesting behavior of the Piping Plover seems like one of Nature's more misguided moves. Their "nest" is nothing more than a scraped out depression in the packed sand with some bits of lining. That any of this endangered species survives is astounding to me, given the number of gulls and crows lolling about in the vicinity. I could understand the strategy if the plovers were like terns where large colonies gather to nest and there is safety in numbers (plus, terns have really sharp bills), but Piping Plovers are spread out thin on the ground. Happily, the beach goers seemed to respect the cordoned off areas and the "No Pets" rule was followed. So those three little juveniles I saw have a fighting chance.

Seeing the plovers made the trip worth it--none of the other birds I'd hoped to see--pelicans or rare terns--were around. I did see one juvenile Dunlin on the jetty, but it took flight when a kid with headphones obliviously lumbered by. There were also flocks of peeps flying over the jetty and skimming along the water, but I'm not good enough to identify them on the fly--probably Semipalmated Sandpipers, but they could have been Least, or they could have been Dunlins. There were too many people on the beach for them to land.

I only had 17 species for the mile long walk to the beach, but the Piping Plover was a winner, and also the Bird A Day entry. I'm running on fumes in that contest--if I make it through Friday (which would be 200 days) I'll consider it a real accomplishment.

My little list for a morning at the beach:
Double-crested Cormorant  12
Osprey  2    Nest on tower at head of inlet
Piping Plover  4
American Oystercatcher  4
Dunlin  1
Laughing Gull  15
Herring Gull  100
Great Black-backed Gull  10
Least Tern  1
Common Tern  2
American Crow  5
Barn Swallow  30
Song Sparrow  2    Heard
Red-winged Blackbird  1
Boat-tailed Grackle  1
American Goldfinch  2    Heard
House Sparrow  2    Parking lot