Chicago Piping Plovers

Wonderful memories! Thank you for sharing! 🤍

This is wonderful! Thank you for sharing! 🤍

Piping Plover Cleanup — Chicago Ornithological Society To prepare for the return of plovers to Chicago and help address some of the biggest threats to their habitat, we’re hitting the beach. Join us for a stewardship day as we tackle trash, invasive speci...

Join in 2026 Great Lakes Piping Plover breeding season prep! Will Chicago get a second nesting site in 2026? We hope so!
www.chicagobirder.org/events/2025/...

As we close out Plover Appreciation Day with this year's theme #ploverart, celebrating Piping Plovers and the art they inspire continues. Head up to Waukegan for this special art exhibition! 🤍

The art of photography is prominently featured on this page through the Daily Imani and beyond. We are grateful to community members for sharing their pictures with us to share with you to tell this conservation story and inspire engagement in the recovery effort.

📸: Liam Francis Shanley (Pippin)

It comes down to us, restoring and protecting habitats our plovers need - during breeding and nonbreeding seasons and through migration. Thank you for your support and the work you do locally to help plovers thrive! 🤍 3/3

While there is much to celebrate, the road to recovery remains long. One target is 150 nesting pairs for five consecutive years. We have work to do and we have, as we like to say, imani ("faith" in Swahili). 2/3

📸: Tamima Itani (Imani)

Recovery is a community effort
Your endangered Great Lakes population of Piping Plovers had a record-breaking year with 88 nesting pairs. 1/3

🖼️: Julie Young (a beautiful painting of Imani, reference photo credit to Plovermother Tamima Itani) #ploverart #PloverAppreciationDay

When Sarah Freeman's daughter Caitlin set her June wedding date, mom went to work creating the MOST fantastic wedding cake toppers in stained glass, recognizing the bride's favorite animal is the Piping Plover. 🤍 So beautiful!

"A few years ago I was doing a 'scavenger hunt' and one of the tasks was to create an endangered species artwork using only edible things. Here is my Piping Plover made out of seeds, nuts, and peanut skins."
~ Your Chicago Piping Plover Monitor 🧡 Pam Litchfield Carmona
#ploverart

Yes!!!

Imani was still a bachelor, sharing his beach with an unbanded male Piping Plover when, one day, an unbanded female Piping Plover touched down, generating much excitement! 2/2

Art serves as powerful historical record. This beautiful painting [reference photo credit to Wild Birds Unlimited] by Anne Essex, mother of one of your Chicago Piping Plover Monitors 🧡, takes us back to the Summer of 2023. 1/2 #PloverAppreciationDay #ploverart

Epic news! Aster, the 2025 Waukegan chick of Blaze and Pepper, has been sighted on wintering grounds! 🤍🟡

Congratulations! 🤍🟡

"I took my graduate researcher Collett to Montrose Beach to watch the plover chicks grow up this summer. She's a scientist and an artist. She made this cute little water color painting of one of the chicks when they were teenagers. 😊 I love it so much. ❤️❤️❤️"
~ Tirzah Abbott
#ploverart

As we continue Plover Appreciation Day celebrations with the theme #ploverart, here's a closer look at Sophie Lucido Johnson's lovely painting (reference photo credit to Phil Stosberg), which was recently gifted to Plovermother Tamima Itani by your Chicago Piping Plover Monitor 🧡 Kat.

We are loving this year's theme for Plover Appreciation Day, #ploverart. Your Chicago Piping Plover Monitor 🧡 Brenda Janish made these sweet treats for the monitor season-end bash. She had the mold made and decorated the cookies - perfection! 🤍

Happy Plover Appreciation Day!
Art/artists have a powerful role in conservation, evoking strong feelings and generating discussion.

To kick off our celebration of Plover Appreciation Day w/ this year's theme #ploverart, enjoy this enchanting drawing by your Chicago PIPL Monitor 🧡 Glenna Anderson.

Today is the big day - Happy #PloverAppreciationDay ! We're excited to share submissions to our student art competition and some of the art from our talented coastal communities. Stay tuned for our announcement of winners at 5pm AEST later this evening! #PAD2025

Art murals and sculptures play such a powerful role in communicating local conservation issues – especially when placed in coastal towns with high numbers of visitors! Unlike the secretive and well-camouflaged Hoodie nests and chicks, you really can't miss these striking artworks. #PAD2025

Montrose Dunes Stewardship RSVP Date: 09/20/25 Event Address: 200 W Montrose Harbor Dr (east of Kayak Chicago) Join anytime between 9 AM to noon at the rock wall east of the beach house Equipment and instruction provided. Dress for...

RSVP (optional) here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Montrose Dunes Stewardship Workday: This Saturday, September 20

Thank you for your support and following along this season. Onward to 2026! 🤍
2/2

Pictured: Carolyn Lueck, Sharing Our Shore-Waukegan Monitor, and Daniel Eastman, Chicago Piping Plover Monitor at the Urban Birding Festival

Yay for Illinois Plovers!
Your ILLINOIS Piping Plover Monitors wrapped up the 2025 breeding season, celebrating the highs and still feeling the lows (we never forget our lost chicks). Two nests! Two monitoring teams! Tremendous passion and commitment. 1/2

It's #PloverAppreciationDay this Tuesday 16th and we've already had incredible entries to our art competition!

It’s not too late! If you know someone aged between 4-13 who wants to share their talents and appreciation for plovers, have them enter our competition! Details in photo.

The season is over, but if you’re still hankering for some Plover time, visit our table at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum between 10AM and 4PM today and tomorrow at the Urban Birding Festival. You may even have a chance to have your picture photobombed by COS president, Edward Warden.

X,L/O:Of,Bb's ("LO Beebee's") Journey (Most Piping Plovers are "named" for their band colors. In this case : X=metal, L=black, O=orange, Of,=orange flag, B=dark blue, b=light blue.)LO Beebee started her life in an egg at Port Inland, MI i...

Read about LO Beebee and her first migration to wintering grounds. She is the daughter of Uncle Larry, who made a brief stop at Montrose this Spring, and the sister of Benny and Ray, who were released in Waukegan in July. 🤍
www.greatlakespipingplover.org/single-post/...

"The extinction of a species should be a wake-up call, not a eulogy."

Piping plover: Saving Great Lakes shorebirds and shorelines Sarah Foote prepares a meal of black worms and tiny crickets for the endangered piping plovers she's helping to rear—white, fluffy birds constantly on the move. Feeding time comes every three hours fr...

A terrific read! 🤍
news.umich.edu/piping-plove...