Watch your step: Piping plovers begin hatching Memorial Day Weekend

The season’s first clutch of piping plovers will start emerging from their eggs around Memorial Day weekend, setting them on a potential collision course with crowds of late spring beach-goers. Conservationists and bird advocates are issuing warnings ahead of the hatching.

The tiny chicks are considered precocious, meaning they are fairly self sufficient from birth and are able to roam up to a half mile from their nesting site within a day of hatching. But the birds don’t learn to fly until they reach around a month old. When threatened, they instinctually hide in the sand, which makes them particularly susceptible to predation and accidental death from human foot traffic.

“People just have to be aware that once the chicks hatch … a plover chick could be wandering anywhere from the water line all the way into the dune,” said Jennifer Murray of the Turtleback Environmental Education Center. “If they’re spending all their energy running up and down a beach [to escape danger], it takes longer for them to fledge.”

Early success is crucial for piping plovers populations, as the birds will continue nesting through most of the summer if the first clutch fails. Extended breeding periods put pressure on adult birds and keeps beach restrictions in place longer.

“We want them to be successful early, because they’ll just keep trying into July, even into August, to see if they can raise chicks. So the goal is to have them fledge their chicks by the Fourth of July,” Ms. Murray said. “That’s the conservation goal, because the earlier they’re successful, the higher the fledge rate, the faster people get their beaches back. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

Piping plovers are classified as a New York State endangered shorebird and are federally listed as threatened. The species’ nesting habitats have been drastically reduced in recent decades by development, storm erosion and increased recreational use of beaches.

“We can’t move their nests. We can’t ask them to go somewhere else,” Ms. Murray said. “This is where they have evolved to nest as long as beaches have been formed on Long Island, 10,000 to 11,000 years ago.”

Advocates urge awareness, especially among pet owners. “Dog walkers should either be avoiding that beach for a couple weeks or leash their dog and keep it below the mean high tide line,” said Ms. Murray. “People think, ‘Oh, my dog doesn’t bother the plovers,’ but the fact is, the birds look at any dog as a predator. They come off the nest, and they leave the eggs vulnerable to either cold or extreme heat or predation … The birds don’t know your dog is friendly.”

Fat-tire cyclists should also avoid beaches with chicks, as the hatchlings are especially difficult to see from atop a bicycle.

As soon as they become aware of a hatch, Ms. Murray and her team install signs at beach entrances to alert beach goers to the piping plover chicks. They also hope to erect leash-lending stations at town beaches and are planning to implement the National Parks’ B.A.R.K. Ranger Program, which offers guidelines to help pet owners enjoy nature responsibly.

“There’s a lot of alternatives out there,” Ms. Murray said. “People don’t have to walk [dogs] right on that one stretch of beach where there’s symbolic fencing. There’s usually an alternative right nearby.” 

With all of the other variables in play, Ms. Murray emphasized that following the rules at beaches where plovers are nesting is the best way to support the species.

“We can’t help it if there’s a storm that creates flooding or hard rains for three days. That’s really tough for chicks to survive,” Ms. Murray said. “But there’s a lot we do have control over, and we can help them out.”