Dans Papers - June 8, 2007 - Learn About Piping Plovers!

When you are at the beach this summer, you might notice another animal besides seagulls, crabs and jellyfish, and that animal is the piping plover. Piping plovers are those cute little birds hopping along the shore. They are also the birds protected by the fences you may see on some of the beaches this summer. Piping plovers are special birds because they can only be found in a few places, including Long Island, and because they are endangered.

A piping plover has yellow-orange legs, a black line on its forehead and a black band around its neck. The upper part of its body is gray and the bottom part is white. The gray and white colors of the piping plover help it blend into its sandy habitat.

The beaches of Long Island are home to this tiny bird, which can also be found along the rest of the Atlantic coast, by the Great Lakes and on the Great Plains in the center of the country. The piping plovers that live along the Atlantic Ocean nest on beaches from southern Canada all the way down to North Carolina and then spend the winter in places in the South, from North Carolina to Florida and even in the Bahamas.

Piping plovers leave their winter homes and move to their nesting grounds between the months of March and May. When they arrive at their summer homes, they build their nests and plan to stay for about three to four months. The plovers build their nests on the beaches above the high tide line so that the water does not come up to disturb them. The nests are often close to the dunes. To make their nests, the plovers dig a very shallow hole in the sand and sometimes line it with small rocks and shells.

The piping plovers will then lay about three or four eggs, which will hatch in about 30 days. Like the adult birds, the colors of the eggs keep them camouflaged or hidden from danger. After the baby piping plovers, also known as chicks, learn to fly, which takes about a month, the piping plovers return to their winter homes.

When they are hungry, piping plovers walk along the beaches at the water's edge and hunt for marine worms, insects and crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters and shrimp. The chicks will follow their parents and hunt for their own food.

The piping plover has been endangered since 1986. When an animal is endangered, that means that it is in trouble because its population is so small. If there are not enough piping plovers, they could disappear forever. Other endangered species include whales, tigers and panda bears.

The piping plover is endangered for lots of reasons. One reason is that they live on beaches where many people come to play and walk around. These people can sometimes accidentally disturb the nests of the piping plovers and also scare them when they are looking for food. People are not the only things that can disturb plovers. Kites, pets, cars and even fireworks can be threats to the birds. Natural predators, or animals that hunt other animals for food, are another reason that the plovers are endangered. Foxes, raccoons, seagulls and skunks are all predators of the piping plover. Trash left on the beach attracts extra predators and puts the plovers at risk.

Being endangered is very serious, but there are ways you can help. When you go to the beach, pay attention to the fenced areas where the piping plovers are nesting. Don't go too close to these areas. Be careful when you are playing and make sure your Frisbee or tennis ball doesn't get too close to the nests either.

Another thing you can do to help the piping plovers is to carefully watch your pets when you take them to the beach. Keep your dogs and cats on leashes and don't let them bother the piping plovers. Pets can become predators to the piping plovers if you let them.

Finally, one last thing that you can do to help is to remember to take your garbage off the beach when you go home. Hopefully you already do this, since littering is bad for the environment, but now make extra sure, because, as you just learned, trash puts the piping plovers in danger.

Help protect the piping plovers by doing all these things and they will be around for summers to come!