Yesterday, down at the Laudholm Reserve in Wells, my bird-watching friend Sue and I had the rare and stunning experience of standing next to a flock of piping plovers, which have long been highly endangered. I've seen plovers down there before, but only a handful scuttling back and forth at the water's edge. A large section of the beach is marked off as nesting area, and apparently this year 150 chicks survived in the state of Maine--a banner year, but also a figure that clarifies exactly how fragile these plovers are.

This is not my photograph, but it will give you an idea of the surprise we had at seeing a sudden large flock of these delicate little birds. Many were congregating beside us on a spit of rocks as small bursts of others would wheel in from over the water. They camouflage well against the stones and sand, so it was hard to estimate their number, but we think there may have been at least a hundred.

Probably this was a once-in-a-lifetime sighting. We were so fortunate.