The Piping Plover 



A Newcomer to the Endangered Species List 



by William J. Beecher 



Ihe 



l he piping plover is the bird that comes to mind 

 when I wish to think of nature as fragile and innocent. 

 I first saw it in the summer of 1934 while on a field-trip 

 assignment to the Indiana Dunes. Just out of high 

 school, my fortunes (I thought) had already peaked at 

 an all-time high and I was writing a bird column for 

 Henry Justin Smith of the Chicago Daily News. 



I remember as if it were yesterday that it was still 

 early morning — but the ripple-marked sand was daz- 

 zling under the sunny sky. It was my companion, Earl 

 Wright, taxidermist for the Chicago Academy of Sci- 

 ences, who spotted the bird on the nest and the instant 

 he pointed to it the whole scene erupted like a minia- 

 ture volcano. The brooding bird slipped off the nest 

 with one wing trailing, as it piped a startling peep-lo! 

 peep-lo! This was immediately echoed by the other 

 adult, who had flown in from nearby with a dainty, 

 butterfly-like, hovering flight. 



Simultaneously, several fluffs of cotton exploded 

 from the nest in as many directions. The chicks were, 

 indeed, nothing but balls of down on stilts that ran a 



few steps, then froze, then ran, in a jerky, stop- 

 and-start fashion that was impossible to follow in the 

 dazzling light. These chicks were quite able to shift for 

 themselves, even to feed, but now the parents were 

 taking turns brooding them as protection from the 

 fierce sun. In just a few seconds it was difficult to see 

 where the young birds had come to rest, so well- 

 camouflaged were they with their sand-colored backs 

 and white breasts. The black eyes and bills, with a tuft 

 of black on the back, completed their disguise With a 

 cryptic touch. 



I realized I had witnessed an exquisite example of 

 adaptation to a beach habitat. The matching sand color 

 of the back, with white underneath for countershading 

 and the broken black line, destroyed any trace of 

 roundness in the little birds; and the swiftness of their 

 accelerations and decelerations left the bewildered eye 

 racing ahead of where they actually were. Finally, 

 returning, it could see nothing because of the camou- 

 flage. Natural selection, in perfecting such a disguise, 

 computes the shortcomings of the predator's eye. 



24 



Only 1 7 breeding pairs of the pip- 

 ing plover are currently recorded 

 for the Great Lakes region. Photos 

 courtesy the Chicago Academy of 

 Sciences. 



