Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine | JUL ’19 79“You must be Alice,” I say to the woman
already on the boat with the park rangers.
“I’m your volunteer for the week.”
Alice Van Zoeren is the naturalist hired
by Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
to help watch over the endangered Great
Lakes piping plovers on North Manitou
Island. This shorebird is smaller than a robin
and slightly bigger than a chickadee. It is
the color of sand on its back with a white
belly. Adults have a black band around their
necks and a black slash on their forehead
like a unibrow.
Alice is a small woman dressed all in
khaki. She blends into the neutral colors
of the boat. I think I might lose her when
we get out on the dunes.
The captain points the boat toward
Dimmick’s Point at North Manitou Island’s
southeast corner. When we get close, the
rangers pull down an inflatable rowboat
and slide it overboard. Alice scrambles out
of the cabin and begins lowering supplies
onto the boat. By the time I get into the
rowboat, it’s jam-packed with jugs of fresh
water, Alice’s pack, Alice and now me and
my pack.
“You’re on the rowing side,” Alice says,
the disappointment in her voice telling me
that she had wanted to row us ashore.
“I’m happy to row,” I smile, determined
to be a delightful volunteer, to go beyond
her expectations.
When we bump into the shallows, a
young guy pulls us onto the beach and helps
unload our gear. Then he jumps in and rows
to the ranger boat. I just witnessed the shift
change on the island.
The piping plovers are monitored from
the moment they arrive in April through
July when the new chicks are fully fledged
and able to fly south. A comfortable camp
was established near the nesting area for
the people watching over them.
“Stow your things and we’ll check on the
birds,” Alice says, anxious to get to work.
Determined to be a delightful volunteer,
I stow my pack, grab the other spotting
scope and follow her. The entire southeast
point of the island is restricted while the
piping plovers are nesting. Signs along the
beach warn hikers to keep out.
Alice stops and pulls a radio out of her
vest. “We need to call in to dispatch. They
don’t know your name, so I’ll just call you
‘the volunteer.’”
“Delightful volunteer,” I say raising my
eyebrows to no response from Alice.Once she called us in, Alice walks slowly
at the edge of the water, attuned to every
sound and sight and track in the sand.
I almost trample her. As a long-distance
hiker, once I get near the water I want to
get the miles rolling beneath my boots.
I put a buffer zone between us and am glad
I did because she soon stops completely,
opens the tripod on her scope in one fluid
movement and had sighted and identified
several birds before I reached her side.
“That’s the male from West Two nest,
OYB:XL and he’s with two of his chicks,”
she says. She pulls out a complicated data
sheet used to keep track of the birds. She
records the sightings, then hands me one of
the sheets. We are charged with locating,
identifying and monitoring all the piping
plovers on the point. And there are doz-
ens of birds counting the adults and newly
hatched chicks.
All birds banded in Sleeping Bear Dunes
National Lakeshore have an orange flag on
the top of their left leg (a plastic band with
a little tag on it) and a metal band on the
top of their right leg. On their ankles, they
have bands that identify each individual
bird. Usually these bands are a single color.
Sometimes—just to keep it interesting—thebands are striped. The color code for each
bird can be verbalized: “O, little b, X, bob.”
This meant that on the bird’s left leg, he
has an orange flag (O), on that ankle is a
light blue band (little b). On its other leg is
a metal band (X) plus one of the striped
bands, light blue and orange (bob is blue-
orange-blue).
If this sounds confusing, it’s because
it is.
And the birds constantly dart around
on their twiggy legs making it difficult to
decipher the color-coding. All of the colors
of the bands are needed to identify a bird.
We stroll to the edge of the sandy point.
Alice stops every few steps, scopes the
birds, quickly identifying them and moving
on often before I have my scope adjusted
properly.“I hate it when the stones align to look
exactly like a piping plover,” I mutter into
my scope later on the third day.
“Well. That’s kind of the point,” Alice
says. “They live a life of camouflage. Oh, we
need to check a nest. They’re due to hatch.”
Alice shoulders her scope and begins
the agonizingly slow walk over the low
dunes. The researchers protect each nest
by putting a cage over it. The birds can
get in and out to tend the eggs, but preda-
tors—like coyotes—are kept out. This single
measure has almost tripled the hatching
success of these rare eggs.
Alice adroitly identifies several more
birds on the way to the nest. She notes that
one chick is still hopping on one leg. “We
call him Hoppy,” she deadpans. The little
bird moves quickly even while bouncing
on one leg.
Piping plover chicks begin feeding on
their own right after hatching; they are
precocial as opposed to altricial (altricial
species are those in which parents needA Week with the Piping Plovers
SHE HEADS TO NORTH MANITOU ISLAND TO MONITOR THE GATHERING OF BIRDS
AND DISCOVERS A BIT ABOUT HUMAN NATURE.STORY AND PHOTOS BY LOREEN NIEWENHUIS (AKA: DELIGHTFUL VOLUNTEER)