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Could it soon be over for our piping plover?

By: Mary Agnes Welch

Thursday, Jul. 26, 2012 at 8:32 AM | Comments: 0

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS archives Only one piping plover nest was found in the province this year, raising alarm bells.

There is only one piping plover nest in Manitoba this summer -- gloomy news for the endangered, beach-loving bird.

For the first time in 20 years, no nests were found at all around the east side of Lake Winnipeg. Normally, there are as many as three nests in spots around Grand Beach, and bird lovers would have already watched a small handful of chicks, which look like cotton balls on toothpicks, begin to hatch.

"That's very unfortunate," said Ken Porteous, the co-ordinator of Manitoba's piping plover recovery program. "We're hoping that it's an anomaly, that things will be better next year."

Bird lovers, including those in Manitoba, do a continent-wide census of plovers every five years, and the numbers are bleak. In 2006, there were only 8,100 plovers left in North America. Manitoba's plover population shrinks with every census, from 80 in 1991 to just eight in 2006. The official results of the 2011 census aren't due for some time, but plover-watchers such as Porteous, whose program surveys and protects all the traditional nesting sites on Lake Winnipeg, Lake Manitoba and beyond, counted only seven last year and even fewer this spring.

High water levels over the last two decades have eroded the plovers' nesting areas, a phenomenon made worse by human activities on beaches, including all-terrain vehicles and people who bring their dogs to the beach.

This year, the unusually high water on Lake Manitoba may have actually been a boon to the birds, washing away vegetation and creating a new batch of flat, sandy beaches the birds favour.

When he began his nest survey, Porteous was buoyed.

"I just went, 'Fabulous. I'm gonna find one, two, three pairs here,' " he said. "When I finished my walk, I was just devastated."

Porteous said it's hard to know whether the population went elsewhere to breed and will be back next year if conditions improve or whether this means the piping plover is inching toward extirpation in Manitoba.

One bright spot is a nest -- the province's only one -- found for the first time near Deloraine. Also unusual is there are seven eggs in the nest instead of the normal four.

Ontario's experience provides some hope, said Sue Abbott, a biologist with Bird Studies Canada and Nova Scotia's plover-recovery expert.

The plover was completely extirpated in Ontario, but considerable work on habitat conservation and monitoring has wooed birds back in the last couple of years, proving the plover picks up on changes to habitat and is willing to nest again on old sites.

"It's not the end of the road," said Abbott of Manitoba's poor plover year. "It's a bump. A significant bump, but a bump."

Nova Scotia had a middling year for plover nests. A flood event on the south shore wiped out many nests, forcing pairs to start again. So far, roughly 45 pairs have been spotted, and the last one just saw its eggs hatch this week.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

Pluh-ver or Ploh-ver?

Favours the same kind of beaches humans do -- big and sandy with no scrub or trees, which also makes their nests easy targets for foxes, raccoons and other predators. The plover uses small pebbles to camouflage its eggs.

Tan and white, it's best recognized by a black stripe across the forehead from eye to eye and a single black band, almost a necklace, across the chest.

It makes a "peepl-lo" sound.

Designated as endangered in Manitoba in 1992.

Many biologists say pluh-ver, which rhymes with lover. But ploh-ver, which rhymes with clover, is OK, too.

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