For the third year in a row, Imani — the son of beloved Great Lakes piping plover pair Monty and Rose — and partner Searocket have laid an egg at Montrose Beach. Further north in Waukegan, plover Pippin and his new partner also laid two eggs over the weekend.
The beginning of yet another nesting season on the Illinois lakeshore marks another victory for the species as its population bounces back in the region.
Piping plovers are a federally protected endangered species native to the Great Lakes and known for pairing up to rear young. The Montrose Beach family is part of an ongoing effort to restore the region’s piping plover population, which reached an all-time low of 13 pairs in the 1980s. As of last year, there were 88 breeding pairs across the region, local advocates say.
Sharing the news on Saturday, volunteer monitors said they expect three more eggs from Imani and Searocket. In 2025, the pair had a successful nesting season with three new hatchlings. The previous summer, the pair hatched one surviving chick.
Imani and Pippin returned to the area for the summer on the same day in mid-April, before the latter made his way up to Waukegan, where he’s received a warm welcome.
“After everything he’s survived, Pippin is back on the beach,” a social media post shared Saturday read. “One foot, endless determination, and still winning hearts along the Lake Michigan shoreline.”
Before leaving the area in time for winter last year, Pippin had been spotted with a strand of hair around a leg, which volunteers weren’t able to remove. Upon his return and to their relief, he survived the injury. However, he’s now missing a foot.
Pippin first started flocking to Imani’s turf two years ago. Initially known as “Green Dot,” Pippin hatched in the Green Bay, Wisconsin, area in 2023 and began visiting Chicago a year later. He’s been dropping by Montrose and Illinois Beach State Park in north suburban Zion in search of a mating pair.
His newfound mate, Blaze, has been a regular at Waukegan Beach since 2023 alongside her previous mate, Pepper.
Searocket was one of three captive-reared chicks released in Montrose Beach’s 15.9-acre protected natural area in 2023. The chicks had been collected from failed nests in New York state, transported to the University of Michigan’s Biological Station near Pellston, Michigan, where they were raised by Detroit Zoo staffers.
In June 2019, when Monty and Rose began nesting, their story of love and resilience captured the hearts of countless Chicagoans. Imani hatched at Montrose in 2021. Then Monty died of a respiratory infection in May of 2022, just a month after Rose went missing.
The pair had been the first of the species to return to Chicago and the larger Cook County area in 71 years.
