PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 17, 2024
“Many of our beaches in southern Maine and beyond were hit very hard. It was concerning to me to see how much sand was lost,” said Laura Minich Zitske, director of Maine Audubon’s Piping Plover and Least Tern Project, which works to protect and conserve the rare shorebirds. “The plovers can be pretty resilient as long as they have that balance between sand and grass,” she said. Now that it’s prime plover season, it appears that the pairs nesting on around 30 beaches from Ogunquit to Reid State Park are faring well and adapting to the changes. For the first time ever, they have been found near Timber Point in Biddeford. They’ve also returned to two of the Casco Bay islands for the second consecutive year. There are now 75 active nests and at least 149 chicks.