; )
I've been "occasionally" volunteering as a plover warden at Seven President's Park in Long Branch for a little over a month now... meaning I show up there when the mood strikes me and walk the wrack line and look officious with my badge and binoculars and big camera lens...
: )
Until this past weekend, I was monitoring nothing beyond a space set aside for the hope of nesting Piping Plovers. A pair had made an attempt in late April, but hadn't been seen since... I kept showing up anyway when I needed an ocean fix, but really had started to wonder if my time there made any sense.
These birds are notoriously hard to see and survive mostly by being invisible, so I kept telling myself that I just wasn't looking hard enough, you know?
The Least Terns showed up and they were enough of a distraction for a while that I was able to feel like my presence there was important enough. But...
I heard just today that there are two nesting pairs with eggs(!) and those nests have been protected with exclosures...
: )
So now the serious business begins... where's my whistle?
5 comments:
You can never have enough piping plover photos. And they aren't fuzzy, they're "soft focus"!
Trying to picture you shrilling a whistle at someone... ;o)
Excellent! I'm glad the little guys are actually nesting. They're such cute birds.
Barney Fife!
I never get tired of your pictures or words. This has been a wonderful series of shotebird posts.
We had much smaller numbers of birds the day we counted down at the Villas, a few thousand. A day shortened by thunderstorms. There were plenty of horseshoe crabs the night before.
WSB day at Reeds Beach had an incredible number of laughing gulls, they covered the beach from end to end, feasting on the eggs.The red knots were all on the far shore.
Thanks again for these glimpses of a wondrous natural phenomena.
Watch your head! Those terns are awfully protective.
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