Piping plovers in Chicago: How the ‘love story’ between Monty and Rose unfolded at Montrose Beach

Meet Monty and Rose, Chicago’s piping plover power couple.

The endangered shorebird pair chose Montrose Beach as their summer nesting spot three years ago, going on to break records, fledge chicks and serve as symbols for a city as hopeful and hardscrabble as two birds, individually weighing less than a stick of butter, who picked an urban beach to save their species.

“It’s a comeback story because they went way down in population and then they came back. It’s a great story of conservation,” said Patricia O’Donnell, a monitor for the plovers. “But I got to tell you — it’s a love story.”

Here’s how that story has unfolded along the Lake Michigan coast.

The fate of two federally endangered piping plovers, who chose to nest at Montrose Beach, is in question as a music festival plans to set up on that same spot. “Even under the best conditions, life is very perilous for a little plover chick.”

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The chicks mark a major victory for plover pair Monty and Rose, as well as preservation efforts in Chicago. It’s the first time one of the birds has hatched in Cook County in more than 60 years. Meanwhile, the music festival pitches plans to move its stages away from the nesting area.

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After 33 years on the endangered list, only 73 pairs is glacial progress, and the goal for complete recovery is modest — a mere 150 pairs. That’s for all of the Great Lakes.

So, these allies, they sweat every bird.

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After flying into Chicago for the summer — where they weathered a flooded home and 4th of July fireworks, dodged volleyball players and hungry dogs, chased away a great blue heron, upended a music festival and even faced the death of one of their own — the piping plovers have left the beach.

Now, birders are feeling like empty-nesters.

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Experts are preparing and adjusting for a plover summer during the pandemic. Everyone from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Chicago Park District to the Lincoln Park Zoo and local enthusiasts are anticipating the return of two little birds.

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Monty and Rose appeared in early May at the North Side beach, raising hopes of more plover chicks as they engaged in, as birders say, “courtship behavior.”

By Sunday morning, there were three eggs in the plovers’ nest. A fourth, likely completing the clutch, is expected soon.

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The surviving chicks — often referred to as “poof balls” by birders — have a few weeks of dodging predators and eating as much as possible before they’ll fly and make the second act of Monty and Rose’s species-saving effort.

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Monty and Rose nested earlier this season in a more secluded spot that withstood the season’s rockiest storms. By the end of July, their three chicks were hanging out at Montrose without supervision. They had lost their fluff, and like their parents when they first met, were still missing their feathered collars.

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After two seasons of summering on Chicago’s North Side, Monty and Rose may be flying back to an upgraded summer home.

The Chicago Park District has signed off on a habitat expansion of the Montrose dunes natural area, part of the beach where a pair of endangered Great Lakes piping plovers escaped a music festival, lost a clutch of eggs, fought off other birds and successfully fledged chicks two summers in a row.

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Chicago’s preeminent plovers are together again, settling in for their third summer of saving their species at Montrose Beach along the Lake Michigan coast.

Monty and Rose, the endangered Great Lakes piping plovers who became the first pair to nest successfully in Chicago in decades, collectively traveled more than 2,000 miles to make it back to Chicago just one day apart.

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Like father, like chick.

The Great Lakes piping plovers who amassed a series of successes since becoming the first of the endangered shorebirds to nest in Chicago in decades can add another feather to their caps — one of last year’s offspring survived migration and is nesting in Ohio.

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Not the threat of a music festival, or Fourth of July fireworks, or rogue dogs and volleyballs, or high lake levels and gnarly storms — not even a skunk — could stop Chicago’s Great Lakes piping plovers from propagating.

The third round of Monty and Rose’s chicks have started hatching on Montrose Beach, a welcome sight for followers of the endangered shorebirds after their three resilient years nesting in North Side sand — and after the first clutch of eggs was devoured.

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The final of four eggs laid by the two endangered Great Lakes piping plovers, who became the first pair to nest successfully in Chicago in decades, hatched Friday at the Lincoln Park Zoo. The egg was brought to the zoo after the first three eggs hatched under the bird parents’ care.

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The two surviving chicks of endangered Great Lakes piping plovers Monty and Rose may soon be flying south. But some of the birders who kept watch over them this summer gathered at Montrose Beach to wish them luck with their proper names before they’re gone.

Imani and Siewka will be the latest plovers to look for as part of the Montrose family, birding and conservation groups announced Friday night in front of the cordoned-off dunes habitat where Monty and Rose nested for their third summer.

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Even before the leaves lose their green and the nights cool and days shorten, there’s a sure sign another summer is coming to an end: the plovers have left the beach.

Monty and Rose, the Great Lakes piping plovers who three years ago became the first of the endangered shorebirds to nest successfully in Chicago in decades, have flown south after another Montrose Beach summer.

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Word began to spread about their long-awaited return.

He hadn’t been spotted at his Texas home and the winds were right for travel. She was known to take off around the same time from her Florida island, sometimes arriving before him. Wishes of safe flights came in from across the country as Chicagoans itching to catch an early sight made plans to head to the beach.

By April 24, Monty, the Great Lakes piping plover, was back in Chicago.

Now, birders are waiting for Rose.

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