Overview
Hello Ploverites!
Since last week, it seems our birds are continuing to chug along as well as they can. At the beginning of the week, we were still seeing all five of our chicks on Limantour, but as of our last survey only three were spotted out on the beach. Since we did not see the male of the other two chicks, I like to think he is just doing an extra fine job keeping his brood hidden from predators (and us). Some of the nests we found last week have since been depredated (mostly by ravens), but we did we did find three more nests this week. One nest was found along the beach between Abbotts Lagoon and the North Beach parking lot (our 19th of the season for this area), one was found in the Abbotts Lagoon Restoration Area (seventh of the season for this area), and one more was found at Limantour Beach (sixth of the season for this area). As you might recall from last week, we were predicting at least one nest at Limantour and the female of the nest is white over brown on the left leg, orange over blue on the right leg (wn:ob).
wn:ob hatched and was banded at the nest in Eden Landing Ecological Reserve (Hayward, CA) on July 27, 2024, and wintered in Point Reyes after fledging. On May 20, 2025, she hatched a three-egg nest on a salt pond in the Warm Springs Unit of Don Edwards SFBNWR. She was found by our team at Limantour on May 27 and had her first egg on the ground by May 31, suggesting she wasted no time to trading the south bay salt ponds for our sandy beaches. This is only the second time we have documented a bird breeding in the interior of the Bay Area and later nesting on coastal beaches, so we're excited to see how this story unfolds and hope she finds the same success she did down south.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Matt Lau via email.
Productivity Stats
- 40 total nests this season
- 14 active nest
- 5 hatched
- 21 failed nests
- 5 chicks on the beach
- 0 chicks fledged
A snowy plover chick banded white over brown on the left leg and orange over blue on the right leg (wn:ob). This chick was banded in July 2024 by the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory at the nest on a salt pond at Eden Landing Ecological Reserve in Hayward, CA. In 2025, she has been confirmed to have hatched a nest on a salt pond in the Warm Springs Unit of Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge and is now paired up with a male banded aqua over silver on the left leg, red over violet on the right leg (av:rv) on Limantour Beach.
Photo credit: © Josh Scullen / San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
An adult female snowy plover banded white over brown on the left leg, orange over blue on the right leg (wn:ob).
Photo credit: © Parker Kaye / PRNSA
A three-egg snowy plover nest next to a piece of dried up bull kelp and Velella velella inside a mini nest exclosure. Female of this nest is banded white over brown on the left leg, orange over blue on the right leg (wn:ob) and the male of the nest is aqua over silver on the left leg, red over violet on the right leg (av:rv). Limantour Beach.
Photo credit: © Parker Kaye / PRNSA
Adult male snowy plover roosting in kelp and velella (left) with a nine-day-old snowy plover chick (right) foraging in the same area halfway between the water and foredunes. Out of frame are two more snowy plover chicks of the same age foraging as well. Limantour Beach.
Photo credit: © Parker Kaye / PRNSA
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