Piping Plover call from the bayshore...

Bleary-eyed and sick of the snow I found myself driving north on 47 yesterday morning when Will Kerling called me. "You wouldn't believe what I found this morning at Pierce's Point... a Piping Plover!" He was as excited as I was; finding a Piping Plover on the Delaware bayshore north of Higbee Beach is fairly rare with only a handful of records in a decade of past springs. With excitement, Will started another sentence but then trailed off, "...Oh wait... there's two! They must have flown in with a flock of Killdeer I had!" After being completely exhausted looking for them the day before walking all the way down Stone Harbor Point and back with nothing to show for it except rosy cheeks and stiff ice on the beard, I quickly turned around!

Disappointed at first, Will told me that the Piping Plovers flew south, but we should try High's Beach to see if they landed. There we found an odd scene- a Piping Plover and fresh snow from yesterday. The only thing keeping it from actually being in the snow was the high tide line that melted the snow! [photo by Sam Galick]


Further down the beach we came upon an even weirder scene, a Piping Plover among dock posts and weathered wooden bulkheads! Both plovers ended up down here and it took them a couple of minutes of confusion running back and forth sizing up the wall in front of them before jumping it and moving further north [photo by Sam Galick].


What a gorgeous bird: Will and I were standing at the high tide line when this bird decided to turn around and slide past us, coming so close that I had to put my camera down and watch the bird zip past like a glorified wind-up toy. It paused a couple times right in front of us and foraged along a weak wrack line, seemingly oblivious to our presence and gaping mouths. It was certainly a very memorable experience! [Photo by Sam Galick]