The Snowy Plover Chronicles

Every year, a new spring arrives. At Pajaro, volunteers spend several months helping a little creature – the Western Snowy Plover. The Snowy Plover, weighing between 1 to 2 ounces, is on the Federal Endangered Species List primarily because it has lost vast areas of its habitat due to human intrusion. Volunteers all along the West Coast participate in a program to assist the Snowy Plover in surviving and regaining its population.

Over the next few months, the Friends of Pajaro Dunes will maintain a weekly log of activities and progress of the Snowy Plover on beaches at and around the Last Mile.

Log Entry, April 21 (updated)

The long term survival of the Western Snowy Plover depends on a small group of volunteers. John and Ricky Warriner, long time Pajaro Dunes residents, help to watch over the Snowy Plovers near the Last Mile. As avid birders, John and Ricky agreed to help the Point Reyes Bird Observatory for few hours a week. Twenty eight years later, John has retired from his career as a geologist – if you can call watching over the Snowy Plovers 11 hours per day, 7 days a week, retired. John and Ricky have become leaders in developing birding and ornithological research in the Central Monterey Bay. Their work has resulted in a series of scientific publications and added protection for the endangered Snowy Plover populations here.

John is a founding member of the Elkhorn Slough Foundation and the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve Advisory Committee. John has been active with The Nature Conservancy, Audubon, the California Department of Parks, and is a founding member of Friends of Pajaro Dunes.

Every morning, John and Ricky start their day by walking the Snowy Plover nesting areas. John and Ricky walk the Last Mile and Zmudowski Beach on alternate days. John typically handles the east side while Ricky walks the end closest the ocean. They systematically survey every square foot of the beach by walking back and forth, monitoring the progress of each nest and looking for new ones. If a new scrape is found, they place a marker slightly away from it so as to not give away to predators the true nest location.

Why do Snowy Plovers nest right in exposed areas in plain view of predators? The Snowy Plovers use the sand as camouflage, selecting a patch of ground, near some debris to distract the eye, that can be easily overlooked by a keen-eyed predator scanning from afar or overhead. By placing the scrape in the open, the Snowy Plover parent can easily spot any predator approaching and flush – fly away – so as to not give the location away.

John and Ricky carefully label each scrape: ps001, ps002, for nests along the Pajaro Spit and zb001, etc. for nests on the Zmudowski side. The information is carefully tabulated and reported to the Point Reyes Bird Observatory as data for the Plover Recovery Project.

The first day that a scrape is found, it typically has a single egg in it. Over the next few days, new eggs are laid until the scrape has three eggs. Rarely, a nest may be discovered with four or five eggs. After a few days, a scrape with a single egg will typically be abandoned – too much effort for too little gain. The pair may try again or find new mates. Once the scrape has three eggs, then incubation begins in earnest – the female during the day, with the male handling the night shift. Hopefully, within a month, new chicks will emerge

The time between incubation and hatching is a precarious time for the Snowy Plover pair. Some eggs are lost due to the wind as it blows across the beach in late spring afternoons. If too many eggs are lost from the scrape, then the pair may abandon it. Of course, the pair must be mindful of predators, too. More will be discussed about this later.

Nesting is proceeding along at a good pace. The Pajaro Spit has 9 active nests while Zmudowski has 4. Since the start, five nests have been lost due to human intervention (1), wind (3), and tide (1). Some of the earliest nests should be hatching in a few days.

Stay tuned.

Log Entry, April 14

In spring, barrier ropes are laid on the beach along the slough in front of the Pelicans. This is intended to keep the human traffic away and give the Snowy Plovers and other birds a quiet spot to breed, establish nests, and rear their young. Plovers are very wary of humans. They fly away from their nests even when humans approach within 500 feet.

A plover nest is not your typical straw and twig nest. The nest is actually called a scrape, because that’s just what the plovers do – scrape the sand with their feet and belly. The male adds a few stones and pieces of broken shells, but the plover's goal is to camouflage the nest. Eggs are laid directly on the dry sand. Many plover eggs are destroyed by people accidentally stepping on them. The best strategy is to walk on the wet sand below the high tide line and avoid the roped areas.

Once volunteers discover a nest, they evaluate whether an exclosure should be placed around it. The exclosure, a metal fence approximately 4 feet by 4 feet wide and 5 feet high, is designed to keep predators – and people – away from the nests while allowing the plovers free movement. An exclosure is placed around the scrape if the scrape is outside the barrier ropes or if there appears to be immediate danger of aerial predators,i.e. kestrels, ravens, shrikes, owls. If you see an exclosure on the beach, resist the temptation to approach and give the young family some privacy.

The 2004 season is starting late. Last year, nesting starting over a month earlier. Eight nests have been found so far: five nests are behind the protective ropes on the beach just south of the Pelican condominiums-- the Spit ; two more nests across the river at Zmudowski State Beach; and one more in front of the houses. Unfortunately, the high tide on Thursday, April 8 washed this nest away. The watch is now on! The eggs will hatch within 26-27 days. The breeding pair take turns sitting on the nest: the female during the day, the male during the night. The volunteers will continue looking for more nests while helping to mind the nests that have been discovered.

If you happen to discover a nest on the beach outside of the protective ropes, then find something to mark the location and notify the Gatehouse immediately. The volunteers will protect it with an exclosure as soon as possible.

Updated Log Entry, April 14

Nesting is progressing very rapidly. The volunteers have just reported that the Spit lost one nest due to abandonment but a new nest was discovered (5 active); Zmudowski now has 4 active nests with the discovery of three new ones and one lost due, most probably, to human interference. This means that there are a total of 9 active nests that are being monitored.

Here's a great picture of a scrape with eggs in it. The egg coloration is intended to be camouflaged against the sand to avoid detection by predators. Of course, you can imagine that the eggs in this nest would look like a collection of rocks to a passerby or worse, to someone who accidentally steps on them.
	Photo courtesy of California State Parks.

Come back next week for updates on the Plover Nesting.