Local report on plovers on the Winding Bay beach……
I walked Winding Bay beach on Thursday and saw 18 piping plovers. One of them was banded, which was pretty exciting – Todd Pover thinks probably in Massachusetts. This photo is not a great photo, but there are AT LEAST 8 piping plovers in it – shows how hard they are to spot. ALSO shows the tire tracks from the Abaco Club beach cleaning tractor, which drives right through there every morning.
When I went back there on Sunday (same weather, same time of day), the Club had started grooming the east half of the beach again. That half is now nothing but lots of sand and lots of tire tracks. I only saw one Piping Plover on the whole beach. Not saying the two things are related, but removing all the seaweed certainly discourages the birds that forage in it, nest in it (there was a Wilson’s Plover nest there last season), and generally hang out in it.
Would be nice if somebody from TNC or Audubon told the Abaco Club about the endangered birds on their beach, and asked them not to drive tractors up and down it. Just a thought.
Nine piping plovers on Winding Bay beach this morning, including the one with the band. I’m calling it Mrs. Jones, because it was at the same place, same time, same day as last week.
For the third Thursday in a row, Mrs. Jones was hanging out at the same spot on Winding Bay beach. Meanwhile, Keith Kemp has seen another banded bird down there, which he identified as “Tuna”. This bird even has its own blog.
I wrote to the new manager of the Abaco Club, just a “heads up” about all the PIPL on the beach – no reply.