Piping plover eggs hatch on Chicago-area beach sparking “shell-ebration”
By Elyssa Kaufman
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CHICAGO (WBBM) — Beloved piping plovers “Blaze” and “Pepper” welcomed three new chicks along Waukegan’s lakeshore, and it’s call for a “shell-ebration.”
The Lake Country Audubon Society announced three of the plover’s four eggs hatched on Thursday after a highly anticipated 26-day incubation period. Piping plovers are thought to be nearly extinct.
“Blaze” and “Pepper,” the two captive-reared 2023 piping plovers that returned to their release site in May, successfully paired and produced 4 eggs.
Officials said the remaining egg was still being incubated in Waukegan.
“The chicks face an uphill battle for survival, but we remain cautiously optimistic that they will survive the next few weeks before beginning their first migration to wintering grounds,” Lake Country Audubon Society said.
The City of Waukegan designated the endangered Great Lakes piping plover the official city bird on May 20, 2024.
Piping plovers disappeared from Illinois beaches around 1955. However, their population numbers began to go up, and they were seen nesting in the state about 60 years later, in 2015.
The rare plovers have been reported on Chicago beaches recently.
Another piping plover, believed to be female whose name is Sea Rocket, returned to Montrose Beach in May, giving observers hope that there might be a love connection in the works.
Sea Rocket was a captive-reared chick that was released in Chicago last year along with two other plovers, Wild Indigo and Prickly Pear.
Sea Rocket had been hanging out with Imani, who is a male and has yet to find a mate.
Imani returned to the beach this year for the third straight year. His parents, Monty and Rose, captured the hearts of Chicagoans in 2019 and again during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Monty and his partner, Rose, had nested on Montrose Beach going back to 2019.
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