The piping plovers are taking another shot at saving their species at Montrose Beach.
As the battle over a looming music festival continues, a pair of persistent plovers have started a second clutch of eggs.
Monty was spotted performing his courtship dance again, and by Wednesday a new egg was announced. By Thursday, his partner, Rose, had laid a second egg and a third was spotted Saturday.
The second nest from the plovers, two federally endangered birds that chose Chicago as their summer home, is in an area higher up than the first, which ornithologists hope protects the new clutch from flooding and the summer crowds soon to descend on the beach. The first clutch was removed from the beach last week ahead of a storm and cared for by the Lincoln Park Zoo.
“Where the plovers are nesting now is right up against the already protected area and not in the center of the beach,” said Louise Clemency, a field supervisor in the Chicago office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It will be easier to communicate with people about helping to protect the plovers.”
The Chicago Park District moved the fencing and signage from the first nest Wednesday morning, roping off a large area by the volleyball nets and the dune habitat. It was difficult to spot Monty and Rose in the afternoon as fog settled over the beach, but volunteers continued to keep watch over the new egg.
Unlike the Chicago summer, the fight over Mamby on the Beach seems to be heating up. In fiery letters sent between promoter Jerry Mickelson and the main community group opposing the festival earlier this month, obtained by the Tribune, Mickelson warned that millions of dollars were at risk. The groups met to try to find common ground.
On Wednesday, the Chicago Audubon Society posted a petition to ban large concerts at Montrose Beach. By Sunday, the call to action already had garnered more than 3,600 signatures.
“These beautiful natural areas peacefully coexist with a large public beach, a popular dog beach, volleyball, soccer, fishing, concessions, and seasonal special events,” the petition says. But Mamby is different: “The continuous loud noise, trampling, habitat damage, and litter produced by such a massive event directly threatens the endangered Piping Plovers and fragile dune ecosystems.”
Judy Pollock, president of the Chicago Audubon Society, said the group plans to present the petition to the Park District soon.
Pollock said there are a lot of people who watched over the years as Montrose became an imposing natural area. “To see that whole process play out and come to fruition with these piping plovers nesting there, it’s really phenomenal,” she said.
Carl Giometti, president of the Chicago Ornithological Society, said the new egg is “thrilling” and that those involved in the volunteer effort to protect the birds want to give them every opportunity to be successful.
“We’re incredibly nervous about that first 85-degree Saturday,” Giometti said. “We’re not just picking on Jam Productions.”
Mickelson of Jam said he doesn’t want any of the potential chicks getting hurt and continues to work on a contingency plan to move about 1,100 yards away.
“We’re not bird haters,” Mickelson said Wednesday. “We’ll follow the guidelines that we have to follow to make sure these birds are protected.”
The timeline can fluctuate for later-season nests, but the new clutch could be complete in about four to five days, with three to four weeks of incubation following before hatching. Chicks can run around almost immediately after they hatch, said Clemency, but it’s usually at least 23 days before the chicks can fly.
Once the birds can fly, they’re considered to be more resilient, said Giometti, but until then they have limited defenses, and although Monty will stick around longer than Rose, the adults leave the chicks to fend for themselves fairly quickly.
“Just because they can fly doesn’t mean they are 100% safe,” Giometti said. “Even the adults are very vulnerable to disturbances.”
Ideas like sound barriers and a 1,000-yard buffer are being discussed as ways to protect the birds, and stakeholders are waiting on completed site plans from promoter Jam Productions.
“We’re not anti-concert, we’re pro birds,” said Giometti. “And unfortunately that means we need to make some sacrifices. There’s only one place these plovers have chosen to exist.”
No details of the festival have been finalized and a permit has not yet been issued, according to the Park District.
“We’ve always been good neighbors to people, and we’ll be good neighbors to birds, too,” Mickelson said Wednesday. “I responded and came up with very reasonable solutions to their issues. They have been unreasonable to date, at least some of them.”
Melanie Eckner, a member the Montrose Lakefront Coalition, the group that sent a letter to the Park District opposing the concert, said members were excited to hear about the new nest.
“We’re still waiting to hear Jam’s site and transit plans, and we’ll weigh that against our existing concerns, which remain the same,” Eckner said. “We’re particularly concerned about public access to the area, especially with this amazing opportunity to learn from a rare bird, in the wild, in our own city.”
Clemency said these could be the birds that are essential to recovery of the Great Lakes piping plovers.
“If they can figure it out at Montrose, then they might really be on the road to coexisting with people at other busy beaches, too,” said Clemency.
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