An endangered piping plover pair on a beach in Waukegan have joined their counterparts on Montrose Beach in Chicago and elsewhere on the Great Lakes with little ones on the way.
The piping plovers are named Blaze and Pepper.
Blaze is the female.
The Lake County Audubon Society says they now have four eggs in their clutch or nest on a private beach in Waukegan.
They arrived two weeks ago on the same beach on the same day where they had three chicks last year.
One wintered in Florida. The second in North Carolina.
There are similar stories elsewhere on the Great Lakes.
The endangered shore birds are rebounding. Due, in no small part, to the efforts of volunteers watching over them.
“Piping plovers disappeared completely from Illinois in 1955,” says Carolyn Lueck, the Lake County Audubon Society President. “But through efforts by a lot of groups we’re up to 81 pairs.”
The Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort reported this week there are currently at least 56 pairs with nests throughout the Great Lakes and many are still arriving at beaches.