Hunting plovers
I wake early to start the hunt for the piping plover of Kejimkujik. What sounded like drunk dogs kept me awake last night in my tent at Thomas Raddall provincial park, so I’m grumpy and armed with a cannon. Well, a Canon, as apparently you aren’t allowed to eat the plump little birds. I’ve been a vegetarian for ten years, but plovers look delicious.
It’s just as well I’m only firing photographs, because the poor plover has had a hard go of it lately. The stout, sparrow-sized bird has a big, rounded head, a thick, short neck and a stubby bill. My Parks Canada guide Kendra explains the plight of the piping plover as we meander along the fast-changing path into Keji Seaside near Liverpool. It starts as dense forest but shrinks to shrubs dotted with pitcher plants and lilies. When she’s not giving visitors guided tours, Kendra is watching over the plover’s struggle
to stay in the game of life.
“We had two successful nests this year and the chicks have fledged, which means they’ve survived to the point where they can fly on their own,” she says, clarifying that that’s a good year. The plover problems started at the turn of the 20th century.
“They were actually hunted for their meat, even though there’s not much to them,” she explains. So it’s not just me, I think.
The situation worsened when their feathers became a trendy must-have for hats in Halifax and elsewhere, further putting the plover in peril. The craze for their plumes sent plover populations plummeting, and it’s been officially endangered since 1985.
The path stops abruptly as we reach a stretch of startling white sand. The long, dazzling beach is empty of humans, but we’ve got lots of company. Gulls and herons fly through cloudless skies and seals bob in the water. One big bull has scrambled onto his favourite rock and is basking in the morning heat. This, Kendra explains, is probably what I heard last night: when the seals all get up on the rock, they get rowdy and start barking.
There are also deer on the beach, leaving behind a pretty pattern of hoofprints in the sand. Further along, we discover a very confused green snake, far from any grass. We also discover deerflies, so named because while technically flies, they are actually deer-sized creatures that hover in the air around humans, darting in to chomp out chunks of flesh.
The piping plover has a basic strategic problem with being alive. Kendra kindly describes their nesting habits as “peculiar”: they nest on the open sand. “Where you want to lay down your blanket for a day at the beach, that’s where they nest,” she says.
As far as hawks, crows, raccoons, foxes and coyotes are concerned, it’s a piping-hot plover buffet. The nest “scrape” is the size of a softball dropped in the sand. Rather like a deep-dish pizza.
Storms take their toll on the plover nests, too, with big waves regularly gobbling up eggs.
Even kind-hearted Kendra poses a risk to the plovers, as they and their eggs
disappear into the beach with perfect camouflage. Baby plovers spend most of their first month on the beach, racing about on tiny pegs looking for food at the edge of the tide. They can’t fly, and those little legs can only run so fast.
When plovers spot trouble, they let out a ferocious “peep.” Then they hide. On the beach. They have even taken time to evolve black stripes that look like seaweed, making them practically invisible.
That outfoxes the foxes and other predators, but well-intentioned humans run the risk of crushing the little fellows. Those who watch them have to keep eagle-eyes on the plovers, lest a misplaced foot smash an egg or hiding chick.
“It’s like playing Where’s Waldo,” Kendra sighs.
She whips out her binoculars and scans the distant beach. False alarm: not a plover. We press on, battering the monstrous deerflies.
Suddenly, a hundred yards ahead, a little piece of sand gets up and skitters toward the receding waves. Kendra peers through the binoculars; I ready my camera.
“It’s a piping plover,” she says, and I open fire.
First published in the Chronicle-Herald Aug. 30, 2009.