Shore Thing: The 2026 Piping Plover Fest
Celebrate the return of a once-gone bird
BEGINNING SATURDAY, JUL. 18
In a charming prelude to Discover Presque Isle, which opens on July 20, the first-ever Piping Plover Fest will be celebrated at Presque Isle State Park on Saturday, July 18, and Sunday, July 19. The festival marks the 10th anniversary since the Piping Plover returned to Presque Isle to nest.
Festival-goers will learn why habitat restoration requires a lot of collaboration. Attendees will get to view Our Threatened and Endangered Species: Piping Plovers, a new documentary by Pennsylvania Game Commission filmmaker Tracy Graziano, an Erie native, alongside having a lot of fun discovering why the Pennsylvania Piping Plover and Common Tern Recovery Partnership bills Presque Isle's Piping Plovers as Pennsylvania's "comeback kids."
"It is a globally rare species," explained Cathy Haffner, Piping Plover recovery coordinator for the state Game Commission's Bureau of Wildlife Management. "There are about 4,000 pairs in the world and they occur only in North America, in three different populations. All are protected at the federal level by the Endangered Species Act," she said.
"To put that in context, only 88 breeding pairs were confirmed last year in the entirety of the Great Lakes," she said. That includes the two pairs that nested at Presque Isle in 2025. "We have a small amount of these but our fledglings will go on to colonize other sites. We are helping to grow the population," she said.
The Piping Plover is a native species of Pennsylvania and more than a century ago, up to 15 pairs nested at Presque Isle. "The first nest (at Presque Isle) was documented in 1900," Haffner said. Piping plovers lay eggs in the sand, "well-camouflaged to protect from predators," but as beach use increased, people didn't recognize the eggs, and the last nesting pair (before the relatively recent return) was recorded in 1955, Haffner said.
The effort to attract Piping Plovers to nest again at Presque Isle began after several male plovers showed up in 2005. The Game Commission decided "maybe there's a chance to get them to stay," Haffner said. "So I conducted a recovery assessment, from the Presque Isle Lighthouse to Beach 10."
To restore the habitat, the Game Commission partnered with the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pennsylvania Field Office, the Western Conservancy, the Erie Bird Observatory, and the Tom Ridge Environmental Center Foundation. Habitat restoration included getting rid of invasive plants, which also allowed for the preservation and documentation of rare plant species.
"It took some time before the Piping Plovers decided to stay. These efforts require a lot of patience, persistence and, of course, partnerships," Haffner said. "Finally, in 2017, we had two pairs stay."
The park is now the only available nesting habitat for this species in Pennsylvania, according to Haffner.
"Celebrating 10 years since Piping Plovers returned to Pennsylvania, especially coming back to Presque Isle, is something our community should be really proud of," said Holley Short, executive director of the Erie Bird Observatory (and 2026 40 Under 40 honoree). "We get to be the home of such a charismatic little shorebird!"
The festival opens on July 18 with a free panel discussion and the documentary premiere from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center. A lecture and social hour featuring Francie Cuthbert, Ph.D., professor emeritus from the University of Minnesota, follows from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.; there is a $15 charge. The documentary will also be shown all day on July 19 at TREC.
Piping Plover Fest was timed purposely as a prelude to Discover Presque Isle, said Haffner. "The piping plovers are like the park's little celebrities," she said. Then there's this bonus: the festival also celebrates the Tern.
Registration is required by July 17 for Cuthbert's lecture and encouraged for the other events.
Saturday from 1 to 8:30 p.m., Sunday from 8 a.m. // Free ($15 for Dr. Cuthbert lecture and social hour) // Tom Ridge Environmental Center, 301 Peninsula Dr. // For registration and more info: eriebirdobservatory.org/piping-plover-fest
