Snowy Plover Updates - 2024

We made it to the end of the nesting season! Our team observed two fledges from the last brood of the season near the Abbotts Lagoon mouth, with the female still in attendance and watching over them. The two chicks being raised at International Bird Rescue have also passed their "fledge" date and can officially be included in the fledge total, which brings us to 31 fledges, an all-time record! Our last record was 28 fledges from the 2022 nesting season.

We are now at 27 fledges and two away from breaking our record number of fledges from a snowy plover nesting season! Our last record was from the 2022 nesting season, where we confirmed 28 fledges. We could potentially make it to 30 or 31 confirmed fledglings for this season if all goes well.

The season's western snowy plovers fledge count is currently 25. There is only one brood remaining and biologists will continue tracking this brood for the next two weeks. We're hopeful we can add a couple more fledges to the overall season count. As the breeding season comes to a close, the winter flocks of snowy plovers continue to grow in number. The snowy plovers losing their breeding plumage also marks the end of the breeding season.

We are now at 25 fledges for the season! The western snowy plovers are once again pulling through during the last several weeks of the season. One active nest remained on south Kehoe Beach last week, though it was determined to be nonviable. At least two of the three eggs that NPS biologists transported to International Bird Rescue last month have hatched! Winter flocks of snowy plovers continue to grow.

The season fledge count has jumped to 20 western snowy plover fledglings! Biologists have been observing a female who is missing her right foot caring for her two chicks since they hatched. Winter flocks of snowy plovers continue to grow. The eggs that were collected and transported to International Bird Rescue have yet to hatch, but we anticipate they will within the next week and a half.

There are only two active snowy plover nests remaining for this season—one in the Abbotts Lagoon restoration area and one on Kehoe Beach, near the lagoon mouth. They are both set to hatch within the next week. There are currently 10 broods, with several broods are approaching this 28-day mark and biologists will be busy this month confirming fledglings to add to the current season's fledge count of 15. Winter flocks of snowy plovers continue to grow.

The snowy plover breeding season is coming to a close with only two active snowy plover nests remaining—one in the Abbotts Lagoon restoration area and one on Kehoe Beach. Our current fledge count has remained at 15 for a while, but with around 25 to 30 hatchlings running around on our beaches, we're likely to have many more fledges incoming! Winter flocks of snowy plovers continue to grow and can be found at many beaches at Point Reyes.

The end of the snowy plover nesting season is in sight! Only five known nests remain, three of which are projected to hatch over the weekend. Winter flocks of snowy plovers can be found at park beaches. The Breeding Window Survey results back in May are in. A new nest was found earlier this week. And, lastly, a quick update on the Drakes Spit brood!

This week, biologists were busy banding chicks, searching for broods, confirming fledges, and looking for new nests. Small snowy plover flocks have been seen around the seashore, signaling the start of winter flocking. And there was some big news this week! On July 8, monitoring volunteer Wanda Bonneville found a snowy plover nest on Drakes Spit!

The plovers are keeping busy with four new nests were found this week by biologists. Last week, after a female plover was depredated by a common raven, biologists removed exclosures from existing nests on Limantour. And learn about a plover feud.

Two new nests were found between the Abbotts Lagoon mouth and North Beach parking lot. At this time, we have two active nests on Limantour Spit, one on Kehoe Beach, one in the Abbotts Lagoon Restoration Area, and four on the beach between the Abbotts Lagoon mouth and North Beach parking lot. It was a big week for fledglings! We added 5 more fledges to the season scoreboard, with a total of 14 thus far. This is significantly above average!

Since our last update two weeks ago, the park's plover team has confirmed a minimum of nine fledglings from the first round of nests! There are likely several more because our team has been having difficulty locating and identifying newly fledged juveniles for broods that we are confident are still alive and active. We only had one fledgling at this point of the nesting season last year and only two in 2022. We still have two and a half months of the nesting season to go!

There haven't been many notable changes since last week's update—one new nest was found on North Beach (the 12th for this year in this area) and another in the Abbotts Lagoon restoration area (the second for this site). Most of the nests that hatched in the past couple weeks still have broods that are active with at least one chick.

The snowy plover nesting season in Point Reyes has been a whirlwind! The first nest of the season popped up on April 3 at Limantour Beach and we started detecting nesting at all the usual sites soon after. As of Friday May 24, NPS and Point Blue Conservation Science biologists have found 19 total nests: 4 on Limantour Spit, 1 on Kehoe Beach, 1 in the Abbotts Lagoon restoration area, 11 between Abbotts Lagoon & North Beach, and 2 between North Beach & South Beach parking lots.