New year, New Hoodies
22 January 2024
by Inala Swart, Conservation Ranger
Hoodie breeding season is already well underway and with the new year comes some welcome new surprises for the Great Ocean Road hooded plovers!
For the first time in our history of monitoring a pair of hoodies has nested on the Lorne main beach. Typically this beach has too much human disturbance for hoodies to use so the presence of a new nest during the peak of the visitor season is an amazing feat. These birds have continued to surprise us by successfully incubating these eggs to term and hatching out two chicks.
Hooded plovers naturally have a low success rate of raising chicks to adulthood, so in response our team and the local community have put all hands on deck to try to give these babies the best chance. An exclusion zone has been set up in the area the hoodies are using and rangers and volunteers are taking shifts on the beach watching them to make sure they are not disturbed and to teach the public about them. We ask that you don’t go into this zone and please follow all signage and instruction from wardens, but please feel free to come and have a chat to us if you want to learn more.
Further down the coast we’ve had another surprise in the form of an unrecorded pair of hoodies nesting on the beach between Wye River and Kennett River. This pair has already laid three eggs and we’re frequently checking to monitor their progress.
This good news give us some hope this season but it’s important to remember that our hooded plovers are still facing significant threats and need all the community help to survive. Human disturbance has already caused a number of nest failures along the coast this year and so far no birds have been able to raise a chick to fledgling stage.
The good news is that the season is not over yet and birds will keep trying through to the end of the breeding season in April, so with everyone sharing our beaches respectfully with the local wildlife, we hope to see some grown up chicks successfully take flight soon.