The Waterfall Creek chick with parents on April 13, the day before fledging. This was the
mother's first fledge in 14 breeding seasons. All photos: David Hartney
mother's first fledge in 14 breeding seasons. All photos: David Hartney
By Catherine Watson
IT’S been a long and difficult summer for the hooded plovers and their minders, but a fairytale finish to the breeding season has local volunteers celebrating.
The final fledge for the season occurred at Waterfall Creek (Harmers Haven) on Monday. Once the fledgling leaves Waterfall Creek, the exhausted hoodie parents – and their human volunteers – are off duty until the breeding season starts again in August.
David Hartney, who co-ordinates the team of volunteers between Undertow Bay and Harmers, says this one was very special.
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“The parents spent a total of 69 days incubating eggs and 35 days protecting this last chick to get it to the fledgling stage and they're still looking after it. So it's 104 days of effort. They're exhausted.”
They’re not the only ones. The human hoodies – their minders – have also had a long, hard season. They’ve done 115 monitoring visits to the Wreck Beach and Waterfall sites. The chances of a hooded plover egg reaching the fledging stage are about 2 per cent. The odds of this chick making it were even lower. |
The figures
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It was very late in the breeding season. The last successful fledging at Waterfall Creek was in 2013-14. And this hoodie pair seemed doomed to fail. This was their fifth clutch for the season. The previous four had been at Wreck Beach. They’d had 10 eggs and not one chick. The usual story: dogs, foxes, magpies …
Each loss was followed by a period of mourning, a couple of days when they stood on the beach staring out to sea. And then started again. The fifth time they moved down the beach a couple of hundred metres, to Waterfall Creek. They scraped a nest in the sand and started again ...
“We have a lot of disappointments through the year, but when you get one to this stage, that's what it's all about,” David says. "This is like gold.
“Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that the female is 18 years old, hatched or fledged in 2007. She's been breeding since 2011 and as far as I can ascertain, it's the first fledge she's ever had.”
The Waterfall chick brings the number of fledges in Bass Coast to 13 (Phillip Island is counted separately), which is around the long-term average. Last year there were 13 and 23 the previous year.
Each loss was followed by a period of mourning, a couple of days when they stood on the beach staring out to sea. And then started again. The fifth time they moved down the beach a couple of hundred metres, to Waterfall Creek. They scraped a nest in the sand and started again ...
“We have a lot of disappointments through the year, but when you get one to this stage, that's what it's all about,” David says. "This is like gold.
“Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that the female is 18 years old, hatched or fledged in 2007. She's been breeding since 2011 and as far as I can ascertain, it's the first fledge she's ever had.”
The Waterfall chick brings the number of fledges in Bass Coast to 13 (Phillip Island is counted separately), which is around the long-term average. Last year there were 13 and 23 the previous year.
It’s not a bad number after a very slow and difficult start to the season. The September storms destroyed a lot of nesting habitat on the fore dunes. The breeding pairs struggled to find suitable nesting sites. One pair nested right in the middle of the access track at F break, at Wilson's Road. They had three eggs, lost one egg during incubation, hatched two chicks, lost one about five days in, and one fledged.
“That was a bit of a miracle too,” says David.
A QR code on the beach signs links to David’s Cape Chatter website where you can get the latest information on nesting sites and birds.
“That was a bit of a miracle too,” says David.
A QR code on the beach signs links to David’s Cape Chatter website where you can get the latest information on nesting sites and birds.