Winter Feast

Great Lakes Piping Plovers spend their winter months feasting on nutritious marine worms. Mia Matejschak photographed this great series of LiVY (Of,LV:X,Y - L=Black, V=Violet, Y=Yellow) Pulling up a worm in Pinellas county, FL.

LiVY hatched in 2022 at Silver Lake State Park, MI. She's a half-sister to the famous Monty of Montrose Park, Chicago. In 2023 she returned to Silver Lake and nested with her dad, YOGi but they didn't successfully fledge any chicks. In 2024 and 2025 she has nested at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Her winter home is Pinellas county, FL.

We hope she finds plenty more marine worms over the winter and returns north ready to add healthy chicks to the Great Lakes Piping Plover population.