Celebrating Piping Plover Success in Tawas

A female piping plover, dubbed Ginger (leg band code Of,GN:X,G), with her chicks she reared in 2024 at Tawas Point. Looking closely, you can see one of her chicks nestled under her body. Photo courtesy Gary Nelkie

This is the second year Huron Pines has collaborated with AuSable Valley Audubon volunteers, the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to support endangered piping plovers nesting on the Lake Huron coast in Tawas.

Two breeding pairs fledged a total of 7 chicks at Tawas Point State Park, a remarkable feat at such a busy park. We attribute this success to our 7 volunteer piping plover monitors who spent a combined 200 hours watching over these sensitive birds and their nests this summer. Volunteers sent in daily reports of their observations while educating curious park visitors about the small imperiled shorebird.

Some of this year's volunteer piping plover monitors gathered at Tawas Point. These volunteers contributed 200 hours of their time keeping watch over these sensitive birds as they nested and fledged chicks and are critical for the recovery of this endangered shorebird population. Photo courtesy Marge Pestka

Volunteers and Huron Pines staff assisted members of the Conservation Team in banding the chicks' legs to identify each individual bird. These bands help birders visually recognize and report individual plovers as they migrate to locations on the Southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts in winter and back to the Great Lakes in summer. Leg bands also help distinguish endangered Great Lakes populations from those which breed in the Great Plains and along the Atlantic Coast. All banding and sampling was conducted under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the USGS and in accordance with USFWS permits.

Huron Pines AmeriCorps member Taylor Shay (left) assists the Piping Plover Conservation Team with placing colored bands around the plover chicks' legs. These bands serve as a visual ID for plover monitors when the birds return to nesting sites along the Great Lakes in subsequent years.

With only 81 unique breeding pairs in the Great Lakes population, the piping plover is one of the region's most rare and protected animals. Huron Pines is restoring dune habitats on the Lake Huron coast, from Cheboygan to Tawas Point, to support their population. Funding for this work is provided in part by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act.

We want to thank all our volunteers for their time and dedication this season, and the Piping Plover Conservation Team for their leadership and collaboration in this effort. Learn more at greatlakespipingplover.org.

Watch a short video below of a plover and her chicks, each just a few hours old, at Tawas Point. Video filmed by volunteer Plover Monitor Martha Withers.