summer for the past 6 years, Chicagoans have gone plover crazy.

I'm talking about piping plovers the endangered birds that have decided to raise their family on the lakefront.

3 new plover chicks hatched about 10 days ago at Montrose Beach.

So what's all the fuss about?

We explain what we thought it was time to explain body Whitley.

Chicago's lakefront is famously open and free.

>> So why's of crime section of monitors Beach road off every summer because it's for the birds.

Literally the piping plovers.

But there's tiny shorebirds about the size of a smartphone.

>> Action of the week there used to be 1000 them spread across the entire great thing.

think people took away lot of the beaches where they building houses, hotels, marinas and resorts.

by 1986, there were only about a dozen piping plover pairs left in the Great Lakes.

All of nesting in Michigan.

The future looked so bleak for our feathered friends.

They were officially added to the endangered species list.

4 to 2019, 2 of these rare creatures, a male and a female turned up on Montrose Chicago's birders rejoice there had been a nesting pair in Cook County since Harry Truman was president against all odds and logic.

A pair flavors had landed on one of the most crowded beaches in Chicago and decided to start a thing.

>> Maybe slightly unwise choice and cougars part.

But amazing.

An army of volunteers quickly formed to protect the slover's they on team grows from beachgoers and other threats.

>> Long story short the couple and eventually their chicks spent the summer charming.

The pants off.

Chicago before flying south for the winter.

What do you know?

Like all summer blockbusters this Monte inroads returned and Montrose to nest again 20?

Incredibly landed in Chicago within hours of each other.

Despite spending winter on opposite sides of the Gulf whatever.

>> The dynamic duo completed that religion in 2021.

Raising a 3rd take that Montrose.

>> Alas, in 2022, the saga took a tragic turn.

Rose never made it back to Chicago and Monte died of an infection, though.

Some would say it was really of a broken heart.

Still the legacy of these love birds lives not just in their son.

The money was also kind of made it Montrezl.

>> But in the goodwill, these 2 crazy kids created for their species.

Monti in putting the love in plover.