Oregon is for plovers

By Emily Lindblom

For the TODAY

Photos by Mick Thompson

Historically, western snowy plovers could be found on quiet beaches from Mexico to Washington, but their populations dwindled due to disturbance and loss of habitat.

In 1993, when Western snowy plovers were originally listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act, there were only about 50 remaining across the entire Oregon Coast.

“Snowy plovers are an at-risk species, but they've expanded in the last five to six years into the North Coast,” said Allison Anholt of Rockaway Beach, who leads Portland Audubon’s Coastal Birds Project and snowy plover patrol. “We have plover management areas along the coast to protect these birds and to understand what they need to thrive and expand back into their original range.”

This year, a group of volunteers spread out to monitor prime habitat areas for plovers and came back with the highest count ever recorded in Oregon — 536 birds.

“We've been waiting for them to come back and here they are,” Anholt said. “That's a really exciting story.”

Anholt monitors the plovers and trains volunteers to do the same in collaboration with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. A two-day training session is coming up on April 2 and 3, while a second session is scheduled for April 10 and 11.

The training will cover the birds’ history, the threats they face and the ways to help them recover. The training will also feature videos to show how to monitor for plovers.

“They're the color of sand and they don't like you to see them, so it’s a Where's Waldo game to find them,” Anholt said.

After the virtual sessions, volunteers will go out to a monitoring site with Anholt to put into practice what they have learned.

Halle Renn, coastal biologist and board member of the Audubon Society of Lincoln City, has been monitoring plovers for years at the South Sand Lake Spit.

“I took the training and fell in love with it and the birds, and I’ve been doing it ever since,” she said.

The Oregon Biodiversity Information Center has put color-coded bands on many of the plovers’ legs so that volunteers can identify specific birds and add to the record of where they were banded as chicks, where they have been seen and where they are now.

“It’s important to mark down which birds are where to see how successful some of those sites are,” Renn said, adding that it’s like watching a soap opera through a spotting scope and binoculars.

Renn has grown particularly fond of one male plover she sees taking care of his chicks every year.

“As a biologist, you’re not really supposed to have favorites and get attached to animals you monitor,” she said, “but there is a bird out there.”

A female plover will sit on the nest for 28 days but, once the chicks hatch, the female will leave to start a new nest while the male stays behind to raise the chicks.

“When the chicks are born, they can walk a couple of hours after they hatch but they’re the size of a cotton ball,” Renn said. “When they’re cotton balls on a windy beach they need that dad there to protect them.”

Renn spots the male plover at the beginning of the year before he disappears for about a month while he is protecting his newborn chicks. When she sees him again, he returns with a group of almost-fledged chicks who are getting ready to leave the nest.

“That’s really exciting and heartening for me because it’s not an easy life out there for them,” She said. “It shows our site is successful.”

In addition to South Sand Lake Spit, the other monitoring areas on the North Coast are in Nehalem, Netarts Spit and Clatsop Spit.

Joe Liebezeit, manager of the Avian Conservation Program at Portland Audubon, said the sites were chosen because they are optimal habitats for snowy plovers.

“Some of the sites have not had the birds for decades but the goal is for the population to recover over time and recolonize those areas,” Liebezeit said.

However, plovers aren’t faring so well in other parts of their historic range, including the coasts of California and Mexico.

“It’s important for us to protect these birds in Oregon because we’re finding through banding and tracking that they’re expanding to California and Mexico,” Renn said.

A monitoring program in Guerrero Negro wetland complex in Baja California Sur, Mexico recorded seeing a bird that had been banded in Oregon in 2020.

For more information about the snowy plover patrol training, go to audubonportland.org/event/snowy-plover-patrol-training.