American Golden Plover — Part 2

Charadrius dominicus

Images coming soon.

But even without apparent alarm, the scattered birds often rise as if summoned by some invisible and inaudible captain, and fly close along the ground, wheeling and dashing and skimming in beautiful and intricate evolutions. Such a flock offers all too easy a side shot. In "the good old days" of carnage that are responsible for the scarcity of this fine game bird to-day, it often rained plover when the gunners were abroad. This latter phrase suggests the query: What connection of ideas is there between pluvia (rain) and plover derived from that word? An early French writer, Belon (1555), speaking of the European species, of course, says "Pour ce qu'on le prend mieux en temps plurieux qu'en nulle autre saison;" but with us the birds are, if anything, wilder and less approachable in rainy weather than when it is fine. Is it that their backs look as if they had been sprinkled with rain drops; or that they whistle more before storms, as their German name (Regempfeifer) would imply; or that the east wind that brings rain, blows flocks of these migrants in from sea?

Golden plovers, once so plentiful and confiding that they came near enough to the plough for the farmer's boy to strike and kill with his whip, were sold in the Chicago streets for fifty cents a hundred within the memory of many, and those not the oldest inhabitants. Dead birds propped up with sticks when the wooden decoys from city shops were not available; a dried pea rattling about in a hollow reed to imitate the mellow coodle, coodle, coodle of the plover's melodious call, allured the birds within easy range of every farm hand's antediluvian musket.

Plovers' visits depend much on weather, a clear, fine day inviting a long, unbroken flight far out at sea during the autumn migration; whereas lowering weather, especially an easterly storm, drives the birds to the coast, where, flying low, a warm reception of hot shot usually awaits them from behind blinds. Grassy level stretches and pasture lands back of the beaches, rather than sandy places, attract them, since land insects, grasshoppers particularly, and worms are what they are ever seeking. In the autumn migration, at least, the great majority of plovers follow the coast, sometimes closely, sometimes far at sea, so far that many flocks on their way to South America pass to the east of Bermuda. Long, perfect wings and light bodies enable them to cover immense distances without resting. While no fixed route appears to be followed in spring, possibly the birds show a preference then for the freshly-ploughed inland fields where food, winged, crawling, and in the larval state, abounds.

Among all the gaily dressed, tuneful lovers that visit us in May, few are handsomer and more charming in voice and manner than this melodious whistler. Further north he breaks into a long serenade, sung chiefly in the short Arctic night: tee-lee-lee, tu-lee-lee wit, wit wit, wee-up-wit, chee-lee-u-too-lee-ee, as described by Wilson, who followed these plovers to Behring Sea until he found their nest, that so few know. A depression among the grass or moss, lined with fine grasses and dried leaves, usually cradles four yellowish eggs covered over with dark reddish brown spots; but in the eggs, as in the plumage of the plovers, there is great variation. Birds that lay pointed eggs, as plovers do, arrange the narrow ends toward the centre of the nest that they may be the better covered; and rumor says these emancipated females leave all the incubating to the males.

Killdeer

(AEgialitis vocifera)

A certain corn field used to be visited daily by an aspiring ornithologist, aged nine, for a peep at four little yellowish white eggs, spotted and scrawled with chocolate brown, that were laid directly on the ground, without so much as a blade of grass to cradle them. Every visit threw the old birds into a panic, which, of course, was part of the fun anticipated in making the visit. Kildeer, kildeer, dee, dee, they called incessantly as they whirled about overhead and screamed in the child's ears; but still the eggs were relentlessly fondled, while the mother now frantically ran about, dragging her wings beside her, pretending to be lame; now sprang into the air and dashed about every which way, as if mad. In spite of much handling, however, the eggs actually hatched; and what was the child's amazement after leaving them at nine o'clock one morning to return at ten and find eggs, birds, and even shells had disappeared! Later a brood of queer, top-heavy, long-legged, striped, and downy chicks was discovered running nimbly about the corn field, feeding; but what they did with their eggshells ever remained a mystery.