Sleeping Bear Dunes reports first piping plover sightings of 2021 Updated 4:32 PM; Today 4:28 PM Researchers at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore have reported seeing the park's first Piping Plovers of 2021. Photo by Vincent Cavalieri, National Park Service, used with permission Facebook Share EMPIRE, MICH. -- Piping plovers, the tiny endangered shorebirds named for their soft, high-pitched song, have officially returned to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for the summer. Over the weekend observers reported sighting the first 2021 plover at the park, near Sleeping Bear Point. That bird turned out to be a particularly speedy six-year-old male that holds the distinction of being the first plover back at Sleeping Bear every spring for several years running.