Piping plover and its chick on Jones Beach Island, New York

© Vicki Jauron/Getty Image

Hooray for mum!. The parenting of a piping plover

To celebrate Mother’s Day this year, we’re on Jones Beach Island in New York, where piping plovers are helping their newly hatched chicks prepare to leave the nest - just hours after they hatch. While mum and dad were sitting on the unhatched eggs, if a predator, such as a fox, raccoon, or housecat were to get too close, they’d fake an injured wing and limp away from the nest to draw the animal away. That’s some next-level parenting! Who knows if that little chick will remember to call mum this time next year…