Threatened plover arrives on AMI shore

Spring may be in the air, but its true sense of arrival is on the ground.

A sign of spring’s arrival — a mother snowy plover — landed on the northern shore of Anna Maria Island this week.

Only an estimated 220 pairs of Cuban snowy plovers nest along the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico, while the sister species Western snowy plover migrate farther west with an estimated population of 2,600.

According to Glenn Wiseman, an educational director for the Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch & Shorebird Monitoring, three quarters of the remaining population of snowy plovers nest farther north along the panhandle, but a few nesting pairs choose Island shores each year.

“Last year we had five nests,” said Wiseman. “Three of them were destroyed and only two managed to hatch their chicks.”

Snowy plover nests are extremely delicate, said Wiseman, who noted that the nest amounts to a few scratches in the sand where the female will lay one to three eggs.

“They are very susceptible to being destroyed,” he said. “If people go near the nest, the mother will jump off of the nest, leaving the eggs vulnerable to crows, gulls and other predators.”

The March 6 discovery of the Anna Maria nest is within nesting season for the bird, but, Wiseman said, “This is the earliest we’ve ever seen one. We typically see them a little later in March.”

The nest area has been roped off and signs posted to ward off human interruption of the bird’s nesting cycle, which Wiseman said is approximately 24-32 days.

“We also leave brochures for people where we have roped off the area because we are about education,” he said. “What we will do when the time is right is set up a scope for people to come out and take a peek.”

In the meantime, people are being asked to adhere to the warnings and not disturb the nest.

“Most people are well intentioned,” said Wiseman, “but just as much damage can be done out of ignorance than malice, which is why the education is so important.”

Another important reason to respect the nest boundaries, Wiseman said, is because the birds are hard to spot.

“Their colors are the same as the sand, so you could walk right up on a nest without seeing it, and by then it could be too late.”

Both snowy plover parents will stay with the nest until the eggs hatch, taking turns guarding the eggs while the other hunts for food.