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Home»News»Borders of protection for troubled plovers
News

Borders of protection for troubled plovers

By Keith PlattDecember 15, 2015Updated:December 15, 2015No Comments2 Mins Read
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Beach babies: The effort to help hooded plovers breed successfully is well underway with, clockwise from top left, Graeme Miller, Neil Shelley and Denis Goss constructing a protective barrier at Gunnamatta; a male bird sitting on a clutch of eggs laid in not much more than a footprint near the high tide mark; a model of a chick shelter being made at Willum Warrain Aboriginal Association, Hastings, by Friends of Hooded Plover’s Diane Lewis and father and son team Chris and Lachlan Ogden. Pictures: Yanni
Beach babies: The effort to help hooded plovers breed successfully is well underway with, left, Graeme Miller, Neil Shelley and Denis Goss constructing a protective barrier at Gunnamatta; a male bird sitting on a clutch of eggs laid in not much more than a footprint near the high tide mark. Pictures: Yanni

THEY may look like balls of fluff standing on legs thinner than matchsticks, but there are many hands willing to help the endangered hooded plover.

It is a bird that nests precariously close to the ocean’s edge and lays a camouflaged egg that is hard to discern from its surroundings on the sand.

Also prey to many natural enemies the odds seem stacked against the hooded plover, but as its annual nesting season gets underway HOODED PLOVERS 14-12-2015concerned plover lovers are erecting fences on beaches and making wooden shelters to provide protection for the anticipated chicks.

On Monday members of the Friends of the Hooded Plover group were at Gunnamatta, driving fencing posts into the sand and unrolling wire to keep unwary or careless beachgoers away from nesting birds.

A model of a chick shelter being made at Willum Warrain Aboriginal Association, Hastings.
A model of a chick shelter being made at Willum Warrain Aboriginal Association, Hastings.

Flotsam left behind by the latest high tides show just how close the nests are to being swept away.

But year after year the plovers return to this windswept beach, albeit in ever decreasing numbers.

Although dogs are banned at Gunnamatta, the chicks and eggs are sought out morsels to foxes, cats, seagulls, magpies and ravens.

The previous Friday the Hastings-based Willum Warrain Aboriginal Association held a workshop to make shelters for the chicks.

The workshop was sponsored by the Port Phillip and Western Port Catchment Management Authority and involved Indigenous people and Landcare groups. 

First published in the Western Port News – 15 December 2015

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