Dozens attend Mt. Plover Festival in Kimball's Gotte Park

The Gotte Park was the venue last Saturday, June 4, for the inaugural Kimball Mountain Plover Festival.

"Gotte Park was a great location for the event this year. The weather was ideal for this year's event," said Alie Mayes of the Rocky Mountain Bird Conservancy. "We had a turn out of around 40 participants and partners included Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Riverside Discovery Center, and Agate Fossil Bed National Monument."

Included on the schedule for the day were tours to view the Mountain Plover given by lifetime resident, and plover enthusiast of more than 15 years, Larry Snyder, as well as free games and crafts, face painting, and live music was provided by the Green Valley Homesteaders.

Mountain Plovers make their nests and fledge their young on flat, bare ground. Agricultural fields, such as those surrounding the town of Kimball, provide the perfect place for this.

To help farmers avoid inadvertently plowing over plover nests, Bird Conservancy of the Rockies coordinates a nest-marking program. The Bird Conservancy will work with farmers in Kimball County to find and mark Mountain Plover nests on their farming property. The plovers have a much higher survival rate if the nests are located, marked and left undisturbed.

One farmer had a remote camera set in his fields to capture film of a mama and baby chick and Dwyer shared the video with interested visitors that attended the festival last weekend.

Thousands of Mountain Plover chicks and their nests have been saved since the program's inception in 2001 in Kimball, Banner and Cheyenne Counties, with an emphasis in Kimball County.

"Most farmers are very helpful and they are really intrigued by the research," said Grassland Wildlife Coordinator for the conservancy, Angela Dwyer said. "It's more than just a matter of giving us permission to their fields – they are really involved."

Dwyer, Grassland Wildlife Coordinator for the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, has been working with the plover projects for the last four years in this area and stated that the festival is a first for Kimball.

Dwyer added that Kimball County is the primary location for the plover's nesting habitat each year, although there are a few located in Banner and Cheyenne Counties.

"They are largely dominant in Colorado," she said, "but Kimball County is the primary location in the state of Nebraska."

In addition to Snyder, who is active in the plover project, Kimball County farmer, Dan Culek, is also very active in the study and preservation project of the birds.