Overview
Hello Plover Lovers! We have had an exciting couple of weeks, with the first hatches of the season and uptick in breeding activity on most of our beach sites. We are establishing a dog restriction zone between North Beach and South Beach parking lots, to protect plover nests and broods that are now mobile in the area. This zone starts about 0.5 miles south of North Beach parking lot and goes south to about 0.75 miles from South Beach parking lot. (Map - 837 KB PDF) Pets will not be allowed in this area. New signage can be found at both North Beach and South Beach parking lots.
Kehoe (K)
There are currently no nests here, but there is at least one pair of plovers showing signs of nesting soon.
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 here in the past few weeks, though as many as twenty-two ravens have been observed at any one time!
Abbotts Lagoon to North Beach parking lot (NP)
Last weekend, we discovered a new nest adjacent to the trail coming down from North Beach parking lot! This nest was from the same pair that docents observed scraping and copulating a couple of weekends ago. An exclosure has been placed around it, to protect it from common ravens. This area has lost four nests to ravens this year. There is another new active nest approximately one mile north of North Beach parking lot, which doesn't have an exclosure protecting it. There is very little plover activity between this nest going north to Abbotts Lagoon.
North Beach (NB)
We now have two broods in this area! There are two males with two to three chicks each, running around close to North Beach parking lot, prompting the new pet restriction zone. The remaining nest on this stretch of beach is due to hatch this coming Sunday or Monday.
Limantour (L)
We have recently found a single nest between the parking lots. We set up fencing to protect it and reduce disturbance from visitors and pets. More plover breeding activity can be found west of the parking lots, near the end of Limantour Spit. There are at least two pairs looking to nest in that area.
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
- 21 nests so far this season
- 4 active nests
- 2 hatched
- 15 failed nests
- 5 chicks on the beach
- 0 chicks fledged
A nest was found in the 2011 Abbotts Lagoon restoration area, hidden among the federally protected Tidestrom's Lupine. Try to find the nest in the photo on the right!
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