 Ocean
Watch
Friday, September 27, 2002
Plover lovers happy
to see birds returning
Judging from my e-mail, I'm not the only one glad to
see the plovers back from their Alaska breeding grounds. Several people
wrote me, reporting their first sightings of the season. One reader saw
his first kolea on Aug. 10, and Kimi and Ed Michelman welcomed one of
their two yard birds back on Aug. 5.
But some kolea didn't wait that long to return to
Hawaii. On Aug. 1 reader Bob Stiver saw his first one in a grassy area off
Kaahumanu Street. A close runner-up was H-POWER worker Colin Jones, who
spotted the plant's resident plover on Aug. 2. Since it takes about three
days (nonstop) for the birds to reach Hawaii, the last two left Alaska in
late July.
Initial Hawaii arrivals are usually adult females, soon
followed by adult males. These early birds have finished their parenting
duties and left their chicks to fend for themselves.
This isn't as harsh as it sounds. Plover babies eat on
their own just hours after hatching. Parents follow their foraging chicks
around, sitting on them when necessary to provide either warmth or
protection from raptors.
But as soon as the chicks can fly, plover parents live
up to their name of migratory shorebird and head off to Hawaii.
The abandoned chicks continue feeding on the tundra
until late September or October, and then fly out to the wild blue yonder.
Plover chicks may forage on their own just fine, but
navigating to Hawaii for the first time can be difficult. Many don't make
it, and those that do must then find, and often fight for, feeding
grounds, since most are already taken.
I know one juvenile plover that made it here but didn't
get the best real estate. She lives in the middle of my street.
Last year, around October, I noticed a kolea running up
and down the street, picking bugs off the blacktop. The bird stayed there
all winter, disappeared last spring and returned early this month.
Fortunately, the street is a quiet dead end with little
traffic. When a person, bicycle or car approaches this bird, it runs to
the curb and glares. After the intruder has passed, the plover hops back
to the street and continues eating bugs.
Since this bird first arrived in October, it was
probably a juvenile that couldn't wrest space on the nearby golf course,
plover heaven.
I wish my blacktop bird knew about the prime foraging
spot that opened up this year. Old No. 63, the plover that researchers Pat
and Wally Johnson tracked for 21 years, disappeared from Bellows last
spring, before it was time to migrate. Because plovers are so faithful to
their territory, the Johnsons believe that No. 63 is dead.
It's sad that No. 63 is gone, but he will not be
forgotten. This little bird flew nearly 150,000 miles in its lifetime and
is the first to reveal how long Pacific golden plovers live.
If a life span of 21 years is typical, I can expect to
grow old with my plucky little pavement plover.
To study plovers, researchers have been attaching bands
to birds' legs, using colors as location and date codes. If you see birds
wearing such bands, please note the exact sequence of colors on each leg
and notify Wally Johnson at owjohnson2105@aol.com or Phil Brunner at
brunerp@BYUH.edu.
Old 63 told us a lot about Hawaii's favorite bird, but
there's still much to learn.
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