Refuge Said to Have Snowy Plover Nests

MOFFIT, N.D. – The Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge has at least two rare snowy plover nests, the refuge manager and area birders say.

Refuge manager Paul Van Ningen and his son, Aaron, confirmed one nest. Van Ningen and endangered species biologist Carol Aron, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Bismarck office, first saw it Thursday morning.

Bismarck birders, searching for that nest, found a second nest Sunday morning.

Dan Svingen, his daughter Emily, and Kristin and Mark Gonzalez were looking shortly after sunrise on the refuge southeast of Bismarck. They saw one bird sitting down and fussing with something.

“My 10-year-old daughter was looking through my scope. As I gave a long, windbag description of plover ecology, my little girl interrupted and told me, ‘Well, she just stood up and turned over an egg,’” Svingen said.

The Svingens and Gonzalezes took photos of the nest and snowy plover they found. Svingen is chairman of the North Dakota Birding Society’s records committee.

The Fish and Wildlife Service considers snowy plovers a “species of concern,” a step down from endangered. They typically come no farther north than Nebraska, and are known to spend summers in western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, or northern Utah and Nevada.

Van Ningen said he will make sure the plover nests are protected.

“We don’t want people down there disturbing the birds,” he said.

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Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com