Science & Nature
Imani, Chicago’s Native Plover Son, Is Back at Montrose and He’s Already Battling for Turf. See the Adorable Video
Imani at Montrose Beach in 2023. (Matthew Dolkart)
Chicago’s favorite son has returned: Imani, the piping plover, is back at Montrose Beach.
Tamima Itani, who coordinates the brigade of volunteer plover monitors, said she received a text at 3:12 p.m. Friday that Imani had been sighted at the home base where he hatched in 2021. She was among a small group of monitors gathered at Montrose pier Friday afternoon, reveling in the arrival of the tiny plover, who represents a tangible link to Monty and Rose, the birds who introduced Chicagoans to plover fever.
Imani wasted no time making his presence known to a fellow plover, Pippin, who arrived at Montrose a week ago.
The two males could be seen chasing each other up and down the beach Friday, jockeying for territory. The behavior is known as a “parallel-run display,” according to the Cornell Bird Lab.
The two will be vying for more than just a stretch of beach if and when a female shows up. In 2024, Imani and Pippin competed for the affections of Searocket, a captive-reared piping plover who’d been released at Montrose in 2023 precisely with the hope she might eventually make a love match.
Imani was her clear choice last summer and the two hatched four chicks, only one of which, Nagamo, survived.
Per the Cornell Bird Lab, piping plovers often change mates from one season to the next.
So now the wait is on for Searocket, and, ideally, a second female.
The Great Lakes piping plover population was listed as federally endangered in 1986, when the number of breeding pairs plummeted to fewer than 20.
Monty and Rose’s arrival at Montrose in 2019 — the first time a pair of piping plovers nested in Cook County in 71 years — has been one of the plover recovery effort’s great success stories.
Contact Patty Wetli: @pattywetli | (773) 509-5623 | [email protected]
