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.
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.
Representatives from Maine Audubon join with volunteers to install a nesting piping plover enclosure at Higgins Beach. They said they try to get the structure installed as quickly as possible to limit the disruption to the nesting plover.
A pair of piping plover eggs are nestled into the sand at Higgins Beach.
Sophie Garland-Doré, a field technician with Maine Audubon, unrolls fencing before installing a nesting piping plover enclosure. After installing the enclosure, the group will watch from a distance to see if the plover returns to the nest, and if it fails to do so, they remove the structure.
Sophie Garland-Doré, right, and Thea Kastelic, field technicians with Maine Audubon, work to install a nesting piping plover enclosure.
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.
Dutch Walsh of Cape Elizabeth helps secure netting on a newly installed nesting piping plover enclosure at Higgins Beach. Walsh and his wife, volunteer for the town of Scarborough and also at Crescent State Beach. The plovers, which arrive on southern Maine beaches each spring to nest, were listed as endangered by the state in 1986 when there were fewer than a dozen nesting pairs. The birds are protected by both state and federal laws.
A piping plover watches from a comfortable distance as volunteers from the town of Scarborough and representatives of Maine Audubon erect a protective enclosure on its nest at Higgins Beach.
Local & State 
