Another Pennsylvania Chick Made it to Florida

We reported recently about a captive-reared chick from one of the first two nests in Pennsylvania in 60 years. Now a second Pennsylvania chick has been found in Florida.

On October 23rd Anne Mauro, Avian Ecologist with Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Florida, discovered a banded Piping Plover on a beach in the reserve and reported it to plover@umn.edu. The bands on its legs showed that it was a Great Lakes Piping Plover, but without being able to read the three-digit number on one of the bands we couldn’t tell exactly when or where it hatched. After getting more details about what to look for, Anne returned to check again on November 17th. Fortunately, the plover was still in the area, feeding with two Snowy Plovers. She was able to get a good enough look to read two of the digits on its black band, confirming that this was one of the 2017 Pennsylvania chicks.

The odds are against having two of the four chicks that fledged from the two Pennsylvania nests survive their long migration south to the coasts. Hopefully, they’ll make it north in spring and settle along Lake Erie, continuing the re-population of historic Great Lakes Piping Plover nesting locations.