Ocean Watch
By Susan Scott
Plover lovers happy
to see birds returningJudging 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.
Marine science writer Susan Scott can be reached at http://www.susanscott.net.
