Record breaking number of Great Lakes

piping plover chicks fledged

 

A male piping plover tends his chick on North Manitou Island, Michigan.

Photo by Vince Cavalieri/USFWS

 

November 2016

 

Groundhog Day? Seems like the Great Lakes piping plover population is a rerun of the beginning of last year’s nesting season. The 2016 season started with the same two males arriving at the two exact same places in Michigan and on the same exact April day as in 2015. These males, BO:X,g at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and OF,YG:X,G at Manistee, are two of the oldest plovers in the population and have been nesting at these sites for many years. This highlights the high site fidelity that is displayed by piping plovers; where individual birds are not only tied into a location but even follow similar patterns year after year.

 

But the 2016 season played out differently from the previous one. 

 

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