Piping plover Imani has returned to Montrose Beach

The little gray-and-white bird cut a lonely figure as it picked its way along the lakeshore at Montrose Beach on Tuesday.

Perhaps it was remembering what happened last season, when it spent six fruitless weeks here, unable to fulfill its biological destiny.

“What it’s going to take is for a lovely piping plover gal to show up,” said Tamima Itani, one of several local birders who spotted Imani on Tuesday — the first sighting of the bird since last year.

Birders were delighted to see Imani, the offspring of the beach’s famous couple, Monty and Rose. To the untrained eye, individual piping plovers might be hard to identify. But because they are endangered, most have been fitted with leg bands.

Imani is here to nest, as he was last year.

“Hopefully this year there will be a female and he will nest,” Itani said.

Another piping plover was also spotted Tuesday at the 57th Street Beach.

“Unfortunately, it seems like a very handsome male,” Itani said.

Although Imani has previously been spotted in Minnesota, Itani said she doesn’t know where he typically spends his winters.

Imani’s dad, Monty, died at Montrose Beach on May 13, 2022, after volunteers noticed him behaving oddly and stumbling. Rose, the female piping plover, hasn’t returned to Montrose Beach and is feared dead.

Monty and Rose were first spotted at Montrose Beach in 2019 and had returned for three seasons to mate and hatch their chicks, their once small protected area gradually being expanded into a large fenced-in space on the beach where fans of the couple would try to catch glimpses in the spring and summer.

Worldwide, there are believed to be fewer than 10,000 piping plovers left alive.