About This BlogDuring the western snowy plover breeding season, park docents help monitor and protect nesting sites and help create awareness and educate visitors about this threatened species and its life cycle. Visitors have expressed interest in the plovers and are pleased to have staff and docents in the field answering all types of naturalist questions. Through the summer, park staff create updates to let staff, volunteers, and visitors know the latest on what is happening out at the nesting sites. Click on one of the links below to find out how the Snowy Plovers at Point Reyes were doing at the time. To learn more about becoming a Snowy Plover Docent, please visit our Volunteer page. Snowy Plover Update - September 1, 2022
September 01, 2022
This will be the last breeding update of the year—this breeding season went by quick! Our team of Point Blue Conservation Science and NPS biologists found a total of 34 known nests. We confirmed 28 total fledglings, a new record. Nest success was notably high as well. Biologists will continue to periodically monitor the winter flocks and snowy plovers throughout the fall and winter, until the 2023 breeding season. Snowy Plover Update - August 27, 2022
August 28, 2022
Point Reyes' snowy plovers are quickly converting over to winter mode—only a single brood remains, though they have evaded biologists recently; this last brood fledges this coming Monday, August 29. Hopefully we will be able to relocate them before the hatchling fledges and takes off! Biologists are also switching gears: instead of surveying for nests and broods, we are focusing on locating winter flocks and counting the number of birds within flocks. Snowy Plover Update - August 19, 2022
August 19, 2022
We are breaking records this season! So far, we have confirmed 27 fledglings from North Beach and Limantour Spit, surpassing our previous record of 25 fledglings back in 1997. On top of that, we still have four to five plover chicks from three different broods to fledge in the next couple of weeks, potentially increasing our record number. Additionally, we observed incredibly high nest success on North Beach. Snowy Plover Update - August 12, 2022
August 12, 2022
We now only have a few broods left to monitor—these plover hatchlings are due to fledge within the next 2.5 weeks and all can be found between Abbotts Lagoon and North Beach parking lot. Breeding activity on all other sites has wrapped up and plovers have joined the increasing number of winter flocks on Point Reyes beaches. Recently fledged juveniles are beginning to disperse and are being observed outside of Point Reyes National Seashore. Snowy Plover Update - August 5, 2022
August 05, 2022
The end of the snowy plover breeding season is in sight! We now only have a single active nest, due to hatch in the next few days. A large number of broods fledged their chicks in the past couple of weeks, increasing our fledge count to 22! For comparison, we had a total of 23 fledglings from the 2021 breeding season. On top of that, we still have 8–11 chicks still active on Point Reyes beaches, in addition to the three unhatched chicks from our last active nest! Snowy Plover Update - July 28, 2022
July 28, 2022
Like the 2021 season, we found another brood of two chicks from an unknown nest near the Abbotts Lagoon mouth. It wasn't a complete surprise—we suspected there was a banded female that was incubating a nest somewhere in the Abbotts Lagoon restoration area that we were unable to find, but at least the nest survived 28 days to hatch without assistance of an exclosure! Several broods fledged chicks in the past week, many of which were hiding within the Abbotts Triangle area. Snowy Plover Update - July 22, 2022
July 23, 2022
The breeding season is slowing down—only four active nests remain and breeding adults not associated with a nest or brood have joined winter flocks or have migrated already. "Winter" flocks started forming slightly early in the second week of July; these flocks generally don't start coalescing until mid- to late July. These "winter flocks" consist of Point Reyes breeding birds in addition to migrants from other breeding areas. Snowy Plover Update - July 15, 2022
July 24, 2022
With the King tides during the previous week, many of the remaining active nests were in danger of being washed over by high tides. One new nest on Limantour Beach unfortunately was completely washed over by high tides; the nest was in a location where the tide was so high, it nearly covered the top of the mini-exclosure! Photos are below. The breeding pair has been spotted but we have not yet found any scrapes or signs that they are nesting again. |
Last updated: July 18, 2022