Hello again Ploverites! We currently have a few broods spread out along the entire stretch of the Great Beach, as far north as Kehoe Beach, south to South Beach parking lot. We are hitting the last stretch of nests in the next couple of weeks and we need to protect them long enough for them to hatch, so we can improve the number of fledglings we have so far this year. If all the currently living chicks survive to fledge, we’ll add on an additional eight fledglings, giving us a total of thirteen.
Moreover, we have another Kehoe nest and a North Beach nest scheduled to hatch within the week, along with at least another two active nests scheduled to hatch, potentially adding twelve chicks to the beaches in the coming month. There are still a few pairs of adult plovers showing signs of nesting, so there may be additional hatchlings to come!
We are starting to observe “winter” flocks forming a bit early this year. These flocks are congregations of adult and juvenile plovers that start forming when birds are done with the breeding season, and persist going into the winter. They consist of both locally breeding birds as well as migrants from other sites along the coast and from the inland snowy plover populations.
Here are updates organized by beach sites:
Kehoe (K)
There are two active nests: one scheduled to hatch shortly and another that just started earlier this week (both exclosed). Another nest hatched on July 11, producing two chicks. All breeding activity is located at the northern end of Kehoe Beach.
Abbotts Lagoon Restoration Area (RA)
There are no known active nests in this large native dune area at this time. Plovers have not been observed in this large native dune habitat for the latter half of the season.
Abbotts Lagoon to North Beach parking lot (NP)
There is one active nest on this site, approximately one mile north of North Beach parking lot. The South Beach brood, which will be fledging sometime this week, has been observed on this site, meaning they’ve moved approximately 3.5 miles north of where they hatched!
North Beach (NB)
There is a single nest about halfway between North Beach and South Beach parking lot, scheduled to hatch later next week.
Limantour (L)
Plover activity on Limantour Beach remains low compared to the past few years. We recently lost a nest to common ravens this past week, and sadly there are no longer any active nests. At least one pair of plovers are showing signs of starting a new nest, however.
South Beach (SB)
We are continuing to monitor this site for further breeding activity, but have not found any other plovers in the past week.
If you have any questions, please feel free to let Matt Lau, the park's Snowy Plover Ecologist, know via email. Thank you so much, again, for all your help!
Current Stats
- 32 nests so far this season
- 4 active nests
- 7 hatched
- 21 failed nests
- 7 chicks on the beach
- 5 chicks fledged
Two newly hatched chicks from the Kehoe Beach nest, both waiting for their sibling to hatch.
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