Nature watching at Thompsons Creek

[khiemtran]

Here we are on a windy day at Thompsons Creek, for some nature watching by the sea.



The surf is crashing in to the shore, and the surfers at Point Impossible are having a ball...



Liem crossing the creek mouth. Last time we were here, the creek flowed into the sea, but now its mouth has silted up.



Flocking around the creek mouth, we spot dozens of red-capped plovers.



These birds are tiny. They're small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.



Yet they run like little rockets.



We also spot some critically endangered hooded plovers. These are a little bigger than the red-capped plovers, but still small enough to be easy to miss. You can see this one (on nearby Point Impossible) has already been tagged.



And here you can see two adults and a chick. The plovers are endangered because they nest in relatively exposed places in the sand dunes and need to spend a lot of their time defending their eggs or chicks from passing humans, dogs or other birds. Very few chicks manage to make it to adulthood. Even worse, this pair happen to live on an off-leash dog beach.



Chasing a sponge that made a break for it in the wind...



Just as we're about to head home, we spot this nankeen kestrel coming in to land. We wondered if it was plotting how to carry off a hooded plover chick or even one of the red-capped plovers. It watched us for a while, then flew off when I got too close.

Comments

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

We have Piping Plovers on Cape Cod. They nest in the dunes. You have to stay out of them during nesting time. Your beach looks great.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are all sorts of signs warning people to stay away from the dunes, but people still go there. They also advise people not to walk between the dunes and the high tide mark (since the nests will always be above the high tide). We did our best to stay clear of them where we could.

It's encouraging that the little hooded plover made it this far, despite being raised in such a highly trafficked area.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I've always been fond of plovers!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Ironically, the most common plover around here, the masked lapwing, is almost universally despised. Probably because it is big enough and aggressive enough to defend its nest from humans and at the same time obstinate enough that it will build them right where humans need to travel.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Plover vs humans.... I wonder who will win. :-/

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Those plovers are adorable! We have Grey and Ringed Plovers here, though I rarely get close enough to see them since I'm usually out with a spaniel...

And oh my! That's what you call proper surf.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

The little red-capped plovers were gorgeous to watch. The camera doesn't quite capture how tiny they were or how fast they were moving.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Me too!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Love-love-love the tiny plovers ♥

(also, in the face-on photo of the kestrel, he looks rather adorably cross-eyed)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, the little plovers were adorable. I've got a new-found respect for wildlife photographers now (and their equipment), since I was standing about as close as I could get to the nankeen kestrel, with a 300 mm lens, and the image was nothing compared to what you see on flickr. I do love the kestrels though - I used to watch them over the river when I was growing up.