A Sad Day For Chicago As We Mourn The Death Of Monty The Piping Plover
Chicago Tribune - Their story was filled with drama, anchored by hope and, depending on who you asked, one ultimately about love.
But it was never going to last forever.
Monty, one half of Chicago’s endangered Great Lakes piping plover pair, died Friday at Montrose Beach. It was his fourth summer in the North Side sand. He was still waiting on the return of his mate, Rose.
“I used to joke that I’d be a decade older and still coordinating the effort,” said Tamima Itani, an Illinois Ornithological Society member who has kept watch over the birds for years. “I did not think it would last that long in reality but I also never thought it would end so abruptly.”
In some ways, Monty seemed invincible, Itani said. He could clear out killdeer. He could dodge a peregrine falcon. She had seen him earlier this week, watching him through a scope as a few hours flew by. She said she’ll miss hearing his piping sound at Montrose.
“It was so sudden, so unexpected,” Itani said. “We were a little bit worried about Rose, not Monty.”
After three summers of fledging chicks together, Rose still hadn’t arrived from the Florida island where she winters. In a final attempt to make meaning out of the breeding of two birds, some said Monty didn’t want to go on without his partner.
Through the years, the daily battles of Monty and Rose played out in the sand alongside volleyballs, skunks and storms. From the beginning, the odds stacked against the birds were as lofty as the skyline behind them. In their first summer, they overcame a potential beachside EDM festival. Between their thousand-mile migrations were more challenges: the loss of nests, the death of chicks, predators with an appetite for plovers.
Time and again the little birds emerged resilient, and often victorious. Chicagoans showed up day after day at Montrose to keep an eye on Monty and Rose, who came to represent far more than most things that can fit in your hand ever do.
Chicago has perhaps never been so sad about the death of a bird. On Saturday, many were still in disbelief. Some conversations ended in tears.
“To hear the news was absolutely shocking,” said Itani, who had to make a few calls before the news sank in. “I was hoping they would say, he’s just passed out.”
Zero hyperbole here- this might be the saddest thing I have ever read.
God damn man.
Monty took Chicago by storm a few summers ago in 2019 when he and his chick (pun intended) Rose set up shop at Montrose Beach.
They were the first Piping Plovers (Native to the Great Lakes) to nest in Chicago since 1948!
1948!
Monty was hatched on a Michigan Shore Line. He and Rose ended up in Illinois, first nesting in Waukegan before moving to Chicago's famed Montrose Beach.
State and Federal agencies, the city of Chicago and hundreds of volunteers banded together to protect one of the Great Lakes' rarest and most sensitive species on one of the Great Lakes' busiest beaches.
Montrose Beach hosts Mamby On The Beach, an electronic music festival, and several big time volleyball tournaments on a usual Chicago summer. But not the past 3 thanks to Monty and Rose.
But what the beach lost in shit head teenagers stumbling around on molly in Alonzo Mourning Hornets jerseys, and beach volleyball it gained in birders coming from near and far to observe such a rare, beautiful specimen.
If you're out on "birding" than I'm out on you.
Birds are the fucking best. And watching them do their thing is one of the most peaceful, zen-inducing things you can do on the planet.
Clem, Kate, and Large agree.
Monty and Rose's protection wasn't for nothing either. They raised many Piping Plover offspring!
What's crazy is Monty had quite the arrangement setup with Rose. Which is news to me. Apparently, he spent his summers shacking up with her, then flew to Texas while sending her to Florida in the winters.
Did he have a side piece in Texas? Knowing Monty like I think I did, if I had to be honest I'd say there's no way a Plover with handsome good looks like he had could fend off the ladies. And we all know Monty lived life to the fullest and squeezed every drop out of it that he could.
Chicago Tribune. Getty Images.(what a fucking stud)
So if we're taking bets, I'd say yes. But his heart was back here in Chicago. With Rose.
Chicago Tribune. Getty Images.(tell me that little baby Piping Plover isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen. You can't)
When you live life to the fullest, and burn the candle at both ends like Monty did, you burn bright, but you burn quick.
And Monty's flame went out a couple days ago tragically…
Damn it, man.
Rest in peace to "The King Of Montrose". Pour one out for Monty this weekend when you're drinking Chicago.
(Fun fact - Old superstitious people from Italy believe birds have strong paranormal connections. One belief, in particular, revolves around crows and goes something like if you see 5 crows, sickness will follow; see 6 crows and death will follow.
The Encyclopedia of Death and Dying points out that from classical times to the present day, the raven and crow have been thought birds of ill omen. Hammond Phyllis has written that the crow is significant of approaching death or impending doom. If it flies insistently above a place of very close to someone or in circles around a house then that is where the death occurs. However, crows have also been known to herald birth. According to India’s Environmental Information System (ENVIS) Centre On Avian Ecology “The house crow is usually identified with departed souls or ancestors. The bird is the vehicle of Shani or Saturn. In Buddhism, the Dharmapala Mahakala is represented by a crow in one of his physical/earthly forms. It is believed that crows heralded the birth of the First, Seventh, Eighth, Twelfth and Fourteenth Lamas.”
There's also a strong Western belief that birds are reincarnated human souls-
“In Western tradition”, says a piece on Soul Birds, “one of the most common sites for a formerly human soul to inhabit is that of a bird. Such birds are invariably also ominous, in its original sense of prophetic, the rationale being that the dead, as spirits, know both past and future.”
Makes you think.)
p.s. - If anybody who is friends with this Vince Cavalieri guy is reading this, I would love to be connected. Even if he doesn't want to shoot a Barstool Outdoors video with Sydney and I, I would love to have a guy who writes eulogies for birds in my friend circle.