Sophie Garland-Doré, center, a field technician with Maine Audubon, is joined by volunteers while covering a nesting piping plover enclosure with protective netting at Higgins Beach on April 30. The group which consisted of volunteers from the Town of Scarborough and representatives of Maine Audubon and the Coastal Birds Project, identified several nesting piping plovers and planned to install three enclosures. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Piping plovers, an endangered breed of small shore birds, have returned to Maine’s beaches to nest for the season.

Roughly 100 pairs of the birds have been counted so far this year. But Maine Audubon Wildlife Biologist Laura Williams said she expects more to start showing up any day.

“It is still their migration season, so they’ll be a couple more waves of birds coming up,” said Williams. “These are the early birds.”

A piping plover walks along Higgins Beach in Scarborough on Tuesday. Volunteers from the town work with Maine Audubon to help protect the shorebirds, which are protected by both State and Federal laws, and serve as the official town bird. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Usually the birds nest on around 30 beaches from Ogunquit to Reid State Park. So far this season, birds have been recorded nesting on nine beaches.

Maine Audubon will conduct a plover census on June 1. “That’s when we will have a true sense of how many pairs we’ll have this season,” said Williams.

Last year, the number of chicks who survived to flight-age was lower than usual, so there could be a plateau or dip in the number of birds who nest in Maine this year, said Williams.

Piping plovers were first added to Maine’s endangered species list in 1986. Nationally, the birds are considered threatened.

In Maine, the birds have been doing well in recent years, in part thanks to groups like Maine Audubon that work to protect the birds by putting fencing around nesting areas and educating the public about them.

But the birds will be threatened or endangered as long as humans continue to go to the beach, said Williams.

Williams said the biggest threat to the birds is shoreline development – such as building houses and jetties – that degrades or wipes away the dune habitat that the birds need to survive.

Other threats include outdoor cats and dogs, especially if unleashed, that the birds perceive as predators and that sometimes chase plovers.

“We make the beach a much more challenging place for them to live,” said Williams.

Williams said it’s definitely possible for people and plovers to share the beach, noting that Maine doesn’t shut down any stretches of beach during nesting season, and suggested sharing the beach by keeping cats inside during nesting season, leashing dogs on the beach and giving the birds space if they begin to make noise, as that likely means you are too close.

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