Snowy Plovers are back… with some human help
By Ilana DeBare
One of our favorite shorebirds is back for the winter… and in Alameda, at least, they are finding a safer roosting site than in the past thanks to teamwork by Golden Gate Bird Alliance and the East Bay Regional Park District.
Western Snowy Plovers are tiny shorebirds (just 1.2 to 2 ounces) that winter on many Bay Area beaches. The smallest birds in the plover family, most migrate inland for summer breeding, although a small number also breed here.
There are only an estimated 2,500 Snowy Plovers on the Pacific Coast; the federal government listed the western population as threatened in 1993. One of the challenges they face is that the flat sandy beaches where they roost have been overtaken by development and human recreation. It can be almost impossible for plovers to roost on urban shorelines without being flushed by off-leash dogs or joggers.
Why are secure roosting sites important? Casual passersby often think, “What’s the big deal? If a dog chases them, they can fly up and then settle right back down.”
Snowy Plover at Crown Beach, September 2015, by Allen Hirsch
But roosting is in fact an essential activity for shorebirds like plovers. Their breeding cycle is intensive and exhausting: Snowy Plovers are polyamorous, and the female may mate with several males and lay up to three clutches of eggs in three different locations a single season. She leaves after the eggs hatch, and then the male takes on sole responsibility for tending the young.
“You can imagine that’s a pretty intensive expenditure of energy by both the females and the males,” says Cindy Margulis, Executive Director of Golden Gate Bird Alliance. “They have this flurry of breeding activity, then they have to rest and begin to rebuild their energy stores during the winter. That’s where the problem with roost sites occurs.”
Snowy Plovers can be hard to spot in the sand. Crown Beach, September 2015, by Allen Hirsch
When you have busy beaches with scores of dogs and hundreds of pedestrians flushing birds over and over throughout the day, it’s impossible for them to rest. Some of the disturbance is unintentional: Plovers, which roost in shallow indentations in the sand, blend in so well that beachgoers often don’t notice them until they practically step on them.
This is where people can help – and in the case of the Alameda plovers, have helped.
Two years ago, GGBA members doing a shorebird survey noticed roosting plovers on Alameda’s Crown Beach.…