Beating the Odds: A Year in the Life of a Piping Plover

Walker Golder

With this special interactive map, Audubon has partnered with ESRI to offer an up-close, interactive look at a year in the life of an Atlantic Coast Piping Plover. Discover the threats that the imperiled bird faces on its 4,000-mile odyssey from its breeding grounds in Canada to its wintering grounds in the Bahamas, and back—and Audubon’s efforts to protect these charismatic birds every wingbeat of the way. Follow the little birds to North Carolina Important Bird Areas like Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, and Lea-Hutaff Island.

The Piping Plover is a federally threatened and endangered shorebird which inhabits wide, open beaches, shorelines, and dry lakebeds in North America.The global population of these sparrow-sized birds is only about 8,000 adults.

Piping Plovers breed along the Atlantic coast from eastern Canada to North Carolina, on the shores of the Great Lakes, and along rivers, lakes, and wetlands of the northern Great Plains. In winter, the birds migrate to coastal beaches, sandflats, and mudflats from the Carolinas to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

Also read the profile of the Piping Plover's hero, Audubon North Carolina's Walker Golder.

After you get inspired by Melody's amazing story, take action to help Piping Plovers:

• Read profiles of plover heroes working to protect plovers (Piping, Wilson’s, Snowy and Mountain) all across the Audubon network
• Follow Melody, a fictional Piping Plover’s migration story
• Pledge to share the beach with shorebirds
• Donate to support our work right here in North Carolina
• Ask your representative to protect Piping Plovers on Cape Hatteras National Seashore