Imani Summers at Montrose

Imani at Montrose, May 2023 - Photo by Tamima Itani

Imani hatched at Montrose in 2021 to Chicago’s most beloved Piping Plover pair Monty and Rose.  He fledged alongside his sibling Siewka, also known as “zoo baby,” and under Monty’s watchful eyes. His wintering grounds remain a mystery - he has never been reported from the southern US, Northern Mexico or the Caribbean where Piping Plovers spend their winters.

In 2022, after a visit to Lake Superior and the Duluth area in Minnesota, he returned to Montrose and spent the summer there.  He returned again on April 25, 2023, for his third season at Montrose beach.

There were great hopes that Imani would nest in 2023, especially when an unbanded female plover, in the company of an unbanded male arrived at Montrose.  When the unbanded male left and the female stayed behind, speculation reached fever pitch that romance would blossom.  Alas, after a week of evaluating Imani and Montrose, the unbanded female took off.  Given that 98% of Great Lakes Piping Plovers are banded, it is likely that these unbanded visitors were from the Great Plains Piping Plovers population and anxious to return to an area they were familiar with to breed.

Imani defined a nice territory for himself at Montrose, inside the protected beach area.  He developed into Chicago’s most famous and most photographed avian bachelor, commanding a few acres of the nicest lakefront real estate and fiercely chasing Killdeer out of this fiefdom.  When no additional females showed up in the subsequent weeks, many local humans wished for a “mail-order” female.

Short of providing an adult female, the Fish and Wildlife Service, working with the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Program and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources decided to release 3 captive-reared chicks at Montrose, and 4 at Illinois Beach State Park, on July 12, 2023.  This represented the first time captive-reared chicks were released outside Michigan.  Captive-reared chicks have ~80% site fidelity to the site where they are released, returning to it the following year and in subsequent year.  Our hope is that one of the chicks released at Montrose is a female, will return in 2024, along with Imani, and will have a nest with him.