Piping Plover Courtship

Here are some photos of Piping Plover courtship in action as taken by Sean Graesser recently here in Connecticut.

Amazingly we still have pairs of Piping Plovers still trying to find a nest site on some of our beaches, with one example being Silver Sands State Park in Milford. This is the beginning of our busiest time of the year with them and American Oystercatchers at various stages of nesting, young soon to come, while terns are returning, pairing off and setting up colonies in some of these same areas. Meanwhile people are also going back to the beach as the weather warms, and we are busy educating them on why protecting our coastal waterbirds is so important. The good news is that we seem to be off to a solid start, and we'll keep our fingers crossed that the tides and weather cooperate.