Ocean
Watch
Monday, May 3, 1999
Plover lovers tell
of birds’ pluck
Last week, I wrote about Hawaii's Pacific golden
plovers. The story was about how Montana researchers Wally and Pat Johnson
are trying to learn more about these migratory shorebirds by banding and
attaching radio tags to them.
The birds (and the Johnsons) have migrated north by
now, but I can't let the subject go just yet. These little shorebirds, and
the people who love them, generate too many good stories.
One of my favorites, told by the Johnsons, is about a
plover at Johnston Island, which a few months ago was seen walking around
with a fishing line hanging from its mouth.
It wasn't hard to find this bird because people at
Johnston feed the shorebirds there daily. The birds anticipate this, and
at a certain time each afternoon, they begin flocking around the feeding
area.
Anyway, seeing that hooked plover bothered the Johnston
bird lovers, so they captured it and took it to the clinic. There, the
doctor shot an X-ray.
But the news was bad: The hook was so deep inside the
bird's body, it couldn't be removed. Sadly, the rescuers snipped the
trailing line, put ID bands on the bird's legs, and turned it loose.
Though they feared the worst, the plover has been seen
behaving and feeding normally.
Another story I once heard was about a man who found a
plover with one of its legs severely injured. The man amputated the
mangled limb and turned the bird loose. That plover survived for years,
hopping around the man's yard each winter on one leg.
Speaking of survival, while I was at Bellows, the
Johnsons introduced me to two of their oldest bird friends. One is #63, a
male plover that will be 19 years old this July. The other is a female who
will have survived 18 years this summer. No one knows how long plovers
live, but these two birds are helping the Johnsons find out.
A reader wrote to ask if our plovers are the same as
the ones on the mainland. The answer is no, the two are different species.
Ours is the Pacific golden plover; the other is the American golden
plover, which migrates to South America.
Interestingly, the American species hasn't adapted to
human settlement like ours have. The Johnsons were in Argentina last
January and found researchers there amazed when they described how our
plovers gather for handouts and spend winters in yards and parks with high
human traffic.
The American species is quite skittish, steering clear
of farms and settlements. As more of these plovers' wintering grounds are
taken by people, this shyness is likely to hurt the birds' chances of
survival. It's a good thing our plovers don't mind sharing.
Or perhaps it's more accurate to say they tolerate our
presence. One Hawaii reader wrote about several plovers that spend each
winter on his lawn. If he gets too close, they scold him by issuing loud
warning calls. At night, these birds sleep on a rooftop facing his bedroom
window.
After four years, these birds have become the man's
special friends. The reader lobs stones at stray cats with a slingshot to
protect his feathered buddies and wonders if there is anything else he can
do to help the birds while they're here.
Keeping cats away from the area is probably the best
thing people can do for their plovers. As for feeding, some birds will eat
offered food, but they don't need it here on the main islands. Plovers eat
large numbers of alien invertebrates, plentiful on the main islands. This
includes spiders, cockroaches, centipedes and more.
So let your birds eat bugs. And when they come back in
August, give them plenty of space -- or you'll hear about it.
