Part 39

I found this nest on June 25 with three eggs about one-quarter incubated. The male was on the nest. It took several days to find the nest, for the bird would leave when I was a long way off and begin running about and feeding as though it had nothing else to do. By placing a lump of tundra each day where I first saw the bird I eventually found her nest, a mere depression in some greenish moss which, with scattered bits of brown dead vegetation, harmonized extraordinarily with the eggs.

When the bird saw that its nest was finally discovered it showed great distress and ran toward me until about 20 paces distant, where it stood tottering as if about to fall, with one wing raised over its back. In a short time the bird, with tail down and a wing dragging, would walk slowly from me. As I never followed, the bird would return and totter a while, repeating the same performance several times until secured for the proper identification of the eggs.

Eggs.--The golden plover’s normal set is of four eggs, but MacFarlane collected many sets of three and one of five. These are quite uniformly ovate pyriform in shape and have only a slight gloss. The ground colors vary from “cinnamon buff” or “light pinkish cinnamon” to “light buff,” “cartridge buff,” or “cream color,” hence more buffy or less olivaceous or grayish than in eggs of the black-bellied plover. They are boldly and profusely marked, more or less irregularly, with large and small spots and irregular blotches of very dark browns or black, “Vandyke brown,” “clove brown,” and brownish black. Sometimes there are a few underlying small spots of “drab gray.” The measurements of 143 eggs in the United States National Museum average 47.5 by 32.5 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =56= by 31, 50 by =34.5=, =42= by 34, and 46 by =30= millimeters. Both sexes incubate. The period of incubation for the European species is said to be 27 days.

Plumages.--In the downy young golden plover the forehead, crown, back, wings, rump, and thighs are mottled with bright “wax yellow” and black, the yellow being mainly at the tips of the down. A broad patch under the eye, extending back to the ears, and the chin, are white; a spot in front of the eye and an indistinct band above it, the hind neck and the throat are yellowish white, the hind neck being mottled with black; a broad band from the lores to the nape is pale yellow, mottled with black. The remaining under parts are grayish white.

In fresh juvenal plumage, on the breeding grounds, the crown and all the upper parts are brownish black, the feathers tipped or heavily notched with bright yellow, “light cadmium” to “buff-yellow,” brightest on the rump; the wing coverts are pale sepia, notched paler yellow or white; the breast is pale drab, barred, spotted or notched with pale dusky and dull yellow, “mustard yellow” to “Naples yellow”; the belly is white, partially barred with pale dusky; and the tail feathers are sepia, indistinctly barred with darker sepia and tipped with dull yellow. By the time that young birds reach us on migration in September, the bright yellows of the upper parts have faded considerably, and the duller yellow on the breast has disappeared entirely. This plumage is not molted until after the birds leave us; late in the fall, November or later, a partial molt of the body plumage produces the first winter plumage, which can be distinguished from the adult only by the juvenal tail and some retained scapulars and tertials. What happens the next spring we have not the material to show. Most of the birds that we see here in the spring are in fully adult nuptial plumage, but I have seen quite a number of birds, some taken on their breeding grounds, that showed, more or less, old, worn, winter plumage; these may be young birds in their first nuptial plumage.

The postnuptial molt of adults begins with the body molt in August, the new pale drab and whitish feathers of the winter plumage appearing first in the black under parts; this molt continues through September while the birds are migrating. But the primaries are not molted until winter, November to February. In winter the plumage of the under parts is very pale drab, shading off to almost pure white on the chin and belly; the adult tail is irregularly barred with dusky and grayish or yellowish white; the feathers of the mantle are brownish black, narrowly edged with yellow, not notched or spotted as in spring. The prenuptial molt of the body plumage begins in March and lasts until May in some individuals; many old winter feathers are often found in breeding birds, especially in the wing coverts, scapulars, tertials and back. The beautiful nuptial plumage is too well known to need description here.

Food.--The favorite feeding grounds of the golden plover are rolling pasture lands where the grass is short or scanty, prairies, plains, plowed lands and occasionally open sand or mud flats. Its food consists almost entirely of insects, chiefly Orthoptera which abound in the pasture lands. It is said to feed mainly on grasshoppers, but George H. Mackay (1891), who is very familiar with it, says that he has never seen it eat any, though he has watched it through a strong glass near at hand. He says:

I have also examined the stomachs of a good many which I have shot on Nantucket, and have never found any grasshoppers in them, nor in fact anything but crickets (which seem their principal food there), grass seeds, a little vegetable matter, like seaweed, coarse sand, and small stones. I have also frequently shot them with the vent stained purple, probably from the berries of the Empetrum nigrum.

They must find abundant food in the north, for they are always very fat when they arrive here. The large numbers of grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, and other insects that they destroy make them very beneficial birds to the farmers of the west, where they also do much good by eating the grubs, cutworms, and wireworms on freshly plowed lands, their favorite resorts in spring. On the shores and open flats they find some small mollusks and crustaceans. The crops of two which Lucien M. Turner collected in northern Ungava were filled with ripening berries of Empetrum nigrum and remains of spiders. Hantzsch found them eating beetles and caterpillars on Baffin Island.

Behavior.--The flight of the golden plover is exceedingly swift, strong and protracted, as it must be to make such wonderful migrations. Over the prairies the flocks sweep along in compact and ever changing formations, skimming close to the ground at times and then rising high in the air, frequently whistling as they go. William Brewster (1925) has described their flight, as seen at Umbagog Lake, Maine, as follows:

They habitually flew faster than any of the other waders and perhaps more swiftly than any of the ducks except the hooded merganser. Their long, pointed wings, lifting high and cutting deep at each stroke, beat rapidly and ceaselessly, yet so easily and smoothly as to indicate comparatively slight muscular effort. If they happened to pass near at hand or overhead their flight was likely to impress one as having not only exceeding speed but irresistible momentum, also as of solid projectiles, hurtling through the air. Seen at a distance they appear to be moving more slowly and looked not unlike passenger pigeons.

When preparing to alight the flocks often perform extensive evolutions, circling and turning, as they sweep about over the ground, as if selecting a satisfactory landing place. When a suitable spot is chosen, they all alight in a compact bunch, raising their wings high above their backs before folding them, and soon scatter over the ground to feed. When on the ground they are very active, running rapidly and gracefully, stopping suddenly to look around, with head held high, and then striking quickly at some morsel of food. Mr. Mackay (1891) says:

When scattered over considerable ground, as is usual after they have been any length of time on their feeding ground, every bird apparently on its own hook, if alarmed, a note is sounded; they then rise so as to meet as soon as possible at a common center, which gained, away they go in a compact body. During the middle of the day they are fond of seeking the margins of ponds, where they sit quietly for a long time, if undisturbed. When disturbed they are almost certain to return, in a short time, to the same spot from which they have been started, that is, if they have been resting or feeding there any length of time. When suspicious, it is very difficult to approach, decoy, or call them; if not harassed, they are as a rule quite tame and gentle, and can be easily driven up to with horse and wagon.

Voice.--John T. Nichols says in his notes:

The flight note of the golden plover in migration is a far-reaching que-e-e-a, with a quaver in the middle and falling at the end. Though with a thrilling plover quality it at the same time has an affinity to the killdeer’s cry, being less mellow and whistled than the note of the blackbelly, which it also suggests, reversed.

Mr. Mackay (1891) says that when these birds are approaching decoys every bird seems to be whistling “a note like coodle, coodle, coodle.” Mr. Forbush (1912) calls its note “a plaintive too-lee-e,” or “a bright whistle, queep-quee-lee-leep.” Others have given different renderings of some of the above notes.

Field marks.--The bird with which the golden plover is most likely to be confused is the black-bellied plover, but the golden is a smaller, more slender, bird, with a generally darker appearance. When seen in flight the tone of the tail is very dark and the axillars, under the wings, are grey, whereas in the black-bellied the tail is decidedly whitish and the axillars are very conspicuously black in all plumages; furthermore the black-bellied has a conspicuous light wing bar, which is lacking in the golden. The notes of the two are quite different. When in hand the golden is seen to have no hind toe. Mr. Nichols suggests that the golden has a swifter, more buoyant flight, suggestive of the killdeer.

Fall.--Mr. Murdoch (1885) refers to the beginning of the migration as follows:

The nesting season continues till the first or middle of July, about which time the adults begin to collect in flocks, feeding together around the ponds on the higher tundra, associated sometimes with a few knots or a struggling curlew. The old birds leave for the south about the end of July, and no more plovers are to be seen until about the middle of August, when the young, who heretofore have been keeping out of sight, scattered over the tundra, gather into flocks, and for several days are quite plenty on the dryer hills and banks, after which they depart. Stragglers may be seen up to the end of August.

The main trend of the fall migration is southeastwards, mainly west and south of Hudson Bay, but perhaps across it also, to the Atlantic coast, mostly north of New England. In favorable weather the flight is over the ocean from Nova Scotia to South America over, or to the eastward of, Bermuda, and the Lesser Antilles. Mr. Clark (1905) figures out that this is the course they would take, if they flew with a beam wind, across the prevailing winds. Of their course after landing in British Guiana, he says:

From this point their course is not accurately known; but if we apply this theory, they would follow down the northeastern tributaries of the Amazons until they came within the influence of the southeast trades, which would carry them southwest, over central Amazonia toward Peru and Bolivia. Somewhat northwest of the Matto Grosso region, the birds would come under the influence of the easterly winds on the southern border of the trades, which would turn them south, and gradually (as they became more northeasterly) southeast, which would bring the plover into the prairie region of the Argentine. Here the prevailing westerlies of the pampas region would be felt, and the birds would, under their influence, continue down the eastern part of Patagonia toward Tierra del Fuego.

To add strength to his theory he says that there are specimens in the British Museum from Mount Roraima and the Maroni River, Surinam, and from Peru taken in September and October.

Some birds on the fall migration wander as far north and east as Baffin Island and northeastern Labrador. Lucien M. Turner refers in his notes to several adults which he saw and two which he collected, near the mouth of the Koksoak River, between July 24 and August 19, 1882; and I have a specimen in my collection taken near Hopedale, Labrador, a young bird. Hantzsch found this plover breeding on Baffin Island.

Edwin Beaupre (1917) writes:

In September, 1906, a great flight of plover passed over the city of Kingston, which is located on the extreme eastern end of Lake Ontario. The flight was first noticed about 8 o’clock in the evening, and to one familiar with the soft, sweet piping of the golden plover, there was no difficulty whatever in recognizing the bird. A record of the flight showed that eight flocks passed over the city, flying very low, at intervals of about 10 minutes. Toward midnight it was impossible to enumerate the flocks, the flight being continuous. This must have been the main migration for that year, and it continued until 4 o’clock in the morning, covering eight hours. Allowing a speed of 25 miles an hour--a conservative estimate--the distance between the leading flocks and the rear guard must have been approximately 200 miles. What a sublime spectacle this would have been had one the privilege of seeing it in the open light of day! The vanguard of this great aerial aggregation must have reached almost to the Atlantic seaboard, while the rear flocks were trailing their wonderful way over the eastern waters of Lake Ontario. They no doubt began their ocean journey some miles south of the coast of Nova Scotia, but not far enough to seriously affect their regular route to Argentina, in which country they escape the hardship of a Canadian winter.

The above quotation and the fact that William Brewster (1925) recorded the golden plover as visiting the Umbagog Lake region in Maine “regularly and rather plentifully not so many years ago,” suggests the idea that some of the birds we used to see in New England came by an overland route. However, our big flights were probably birds that came in from the sea under stress of bad weather, either before or during easterly storms accompanied by heavy rains or thick fog. According to Mr. Mackay’s (1891) records, covering a period of 32 years from 1858 to 1890, the last week in August seems to be the best time to look for a flight, though he says “it is unusual to see any but scattering birds before the 10th of September.” My earliest record for adult birds is August 9; practically all the birds which come in August are adults. The young birds come in September; my latest date is October 7. The appearance of either adults or young on our coast has always been very uncertain and irregular, dependent on the necessary weather conditions coming at the proper time.

Mr. Mackay (1891) says:

While I have continually shot the young birds on Nantucket, and in other parts of Massachusetts, their arrival is a much more uncertain event than that of the older birds, there being some years when I have seen none, and others only a few. I have never known a year when they were anything like as numerous as I have seen the older birds.