Piping plover photographed by John Cassady.

Piping plover is the only federally endangered bird for which critical habitat has been designated in the Chicago region. That habitat is the open beach areas from Waukegan north to the Wisconsin line. A hundred years ago a number of plover nested on these sandy areas as well as those of northwest Indiana. Here is what Frank Woodruff said about the piping plover in his 1907 book, Birds of the Chicago Area:

Species was formerly a common but now rare summer resident. On Aug 1, 1897 while collecting along the shore at Miller, IN. I obtained adults and young in down. On June 13, 1902 I obtained a set of 4 eggs and the parent birds at Miller. I do not doubt that there are other pairs nesting in the same vicinity, and I sincerely hope that h te nests and eggs of these rare residents are never found by unscrupulous collectors.”

(I am sure the birds would have been pleased to know that they had been killed by a scrupulous collector.)

Waukegan beach was the last place in Illinois to harbor nesting piping plover, one pair in 1973 and another in 1979. At that time the north end of the beach held a shallow pond near the power plant and inland from the lake. In addition, it was sheltered from those walking from the south by a thick growth of willows that extended into the lake. The only practical way to get beyond this barrier was to wade farther off shore, usually at depths that reached the shins or higher.But the willows and ponds have been gone for decades.

After the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally declared portions of the lakefront as critical habitat for the plover, I was commissioned to monitor the area for two years in the hopes of locating nesting plover. I recruited helpers, and special permission was obtained to enter the Zion Nuclear plant. Guards armed with automatic rifles escorted me as I conducted my surveys. But although piping plover clearly use the Lake County beaches during migration, none lingered, let alone nested.

I always thought that the best breeding habitat was at Waukegan- unfortunately it was heavily used by people and their pets. People let their packs of dogs run free, which alone would prevent any plover from putting down roots. On the other hand, the isolated sections, like the nuke and most of the Johns Mansville property just south of Illinois Beach State Park, have very narrow beaches that provide little habitat. I thought it was unlikely that plover would ever nest here again.

Well, guess what? An Illinois Department of Natural Resources biologist discovered a pair of nesting plover this July in the one remote section that has extensive open sand. The minimalist nest held four eggs. Federal protocol kicked in and the birds were observed for the next several days. On the final day, after the requisite number of hours passed without the adults having returned, the eggs were collected and brought to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Three hatched and were flown to northern Michigan, where virtually the entire Great Lakes population summers. It was felt that the young birds would have a better chance of survival if released in proximity to other plover.

At best, we will never have more that a few plover nesting in these parts, but even one successful pair helps heal old wounds.

Adult and chick piping plovers (charcoal drawing by Sulli Gibson).

          

The outing of July 28 was really spawned by a desire to see some friends I had not birded with all summer: Carolyn Fields (whose gorgeous photographs have greatly enhanced this blog), Tim Wallace (ditto), Amar Ayyash (a mathematician living in “far away” Will County), and Sullie Gibson (one of the state’s premier high school birders who spent two weeks this summer in Costa Rica as an intern/ guide at a nature lodge). I picked up Sulli at 5:45 and met the rest of the group in Waukegan at 6:30.

Of all the Illinois beaches fronting on Lake Michigan, Waukegan’s may be the best for shorebirds (it would be even better if local dog owners adhered to city laws requiring that pet canids must be leashed). It was here, back in 1973, that piping plover are generally thought to have last nested in the state. On this day, though, the beach was stingy, offering up but a few sanderlings,  the quintessential beach sandpiper, and an impatient northern harrier heading south well before the rest of harrierdom.

 Our next stop was Illinois Beach State Park (IBSP) , a truly extraordinary place that has long been one of my favorites. (I am actually surprised I have gone this long as a blogger without mentioning it.) When the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory completed its work in 1978 it determined that IBSP had more high quality natural communities than anywhere else in the state. The park even harbors an animal found nowhere else in the world, the leafhopper  Paraphlepsius lupalus.

 We decided to take the Dead River trail (Dead River is the only Illinois river still flowing into Lake Michigan that is not channelized or dammed). Our first interesting bird was a black-billed cuckoo that flashed by and then proceeded to call. Tim had earlier made me promise that we would find one this summer, so the appearance of his lifer took a lot of pressure off my weary shoulders (“the blog, the blog”). Then Sulli spotted one of the day’s two best birds- a blue grosbeak. He saw the male fly into the top of a black oak where it regaled us with song and excellent scope views (our crack photographers obtained great shots). Returning via a different but nearby trail, we met a pair of blue grosbeaks, the female of which carried food.

 Blue grosbeaks until recently were extremely rare in northeast Illinois. I had only seen it once before in Lake County but they are among those southern species that are expanding their ranges northward. Although there is a tendency in some circles to attribute all of this to climate change, I am reluctant to do so because during any period in the past, some species or other is expanding or contracting its range. Cardinals, for example, moved into the region over the first half of the twentieth century while red-bellied woodpeckers arrived during the middle half.

Male blue grosbeak photographed at Illinois Beach State Park by Carolyn Fields.

The day’s big challenge was figuring out what to do (and maintaining alertness) until we shifted our attention to Almond Road Marsh, where for much of the summer a neo-tropical cormorant would appear at dusk to roost with the double-cresteds. It would be a lifer for Sulli, a state bird for Carolyn, and a county bird for me (I have only seen it once in Illinois, and that was a while ago). I had made an earlier try for the bird, spending two and a half hours looking in vain. I later learned that if instead of leaving at 6:30 I had stayed until 7:30, I would have seen it. Amar had to leave us to drive the hour and a half to the community college where he had a class to teach.

 We looked at some shorebird spots and then stopped for dinner and chilled ambient air. More than hungry we were parched. My order raised eyebrows: one tall glass of carbonated water, one milk shake, and an empty glass in which to mix them. Ah the creamy richness of the shake combined with the refreshing tingle of the seltzer hit the spot. Manifesting some concern that he didn’t see it on the menu, Tim was relieved to learn that he could obtain a chocolate malt. Sulli raised the possibility of ordering a milkshake incorporating all the flavors offered by the restaurant, but settled on a vanilla. Carolyn’s thought process and choice were so devoid of drama I can’t even recall what she ordered.

 With everyone fortified by cold fluids rich in calories (and even some actual food), we headed to Almond Road Marsh. Common moorhens called and Sulli spotted two juveniles as they ventured out of the cattails for a few minutes. As time went on, the number of egrets returning to the roost grew to eventually 97. Unfortunately, the number of double-crested cormorants had declined to 20, many fewer than what had been there a few weeks earlier. And indeed the neo-corm never did show up, but my picking out a first year little blue heron among the egrets buoyed spirits (and Carolyn’s county list). At eight we left confident that the neo-corm was gone. (Only to learn in subsequent days that the bird reappeared in a nearby marsh- darn that bird, I guess I will have to look again.) I dropped Sulli off at 9, and arrived at my place at 10. It took a 30 minute nap in the car before I had the energy to enter the house and go to sleep.

Double-crested cormorant at Almond Road Marsh photographed by Carolyn Fields.