Part 42

The measurements of 34 eggs average 48 by 33.2 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =51.8= by 32.5, 48.5 by =34.9=, =45.2= by 32.4, and 46.4 by =31.5= millimeters.

Young.--The incubation period is probably the same as it is for the European bird, 27 days; both sexes incubate the eggs and care for the young. Thayer and Bangs (1914) write:

Mr. Koren watched the habits of the birds closely and found that the males appear to do all the incubating in the early stages, the female at that time never being near the nest. Later on, when the eggs are nearly ready to hatch, she appears again and takes her turn with the male. When the young are hatched, both parent birds are always with them. At Cape Chelakhskai, August 27, 1912, large flocks of young birds were seen ready to migrate.

Miss Haviland (1915a) says:

As soon as the young ones were able to run alone, which, roughly speaking, was about July 20, the birds left the higher ground and began to collect into flocks in the marshy places of the tundra. I am inclined to think that the young birds must need to wash and drink a great deal, as otherwise it is not easy to understand why all the waders of the tundra should leave the nesting sites so early and wander down to the sphagnum swamps. Some of the Asiatic golden plover even crossed the mud hills and came down to the banks of the river.

Plumages.--The downy young Pacific golden plover is like the American bird of the same age except that the yellow is rather brighter, about “lemon chrome,” and decidedly more extensive; it predominates over the black on the crown, back, and rump; there is very little white anywhere except in the patch under the eye and on the chin, throat, and under parts. Miss Haviland (1915a), however, says:

The white tract between the homogeneous mottling of the crown and nape, and the successive black and yellow bands which lie above and behind the eye, and which in C. apricarius is sometimes hardly discernible, is very pronounced in C. fulvus and has enlarged at the expense of the colored bands below it. The nape and upper part of the body are more spotted with white, and there is little or no yellow on the cheek below the eye.

Subsequent plumages and molts are apparently similar to those of the other golden plovers. Doctor Henshaw (1910) writes:

It is of interest to note that in fall this plover migrates before it molts; in spring it molts before it migrates. The first birds to reach the archipelago in August are, as stated, adults, and while they are practically in full breeding dress they begin to molt into the winter dress almost at once. The molting season for the species is long, and many individuals, doubtless birds of the year, may be found the last of December still molting into the fall and winter dress. By the middle of February numerous individuals are already beginning to molt a second time and to assume the distinctive nuptial plumage, which, in the case of these early birds, is practically completed during the month of March, though individuals continue to moult far into April and some no doubt complete the final stages in Alaska. Doubtless the individuals to molt first in spring are the adults which arrive first, and finish the fall molt first; and doubtless, too, these are the birds first to leave Hawaii for their breeding grounds in Alaska. So protracted is the molt of the species that it is probably true that during the stay of this plover in Hawaii--from middle August till May--there is not a month when some individuals are not molting.

There is no reason for believing that the plover summering in the islands which, as before stated, are chiefly if not wholly immature birds, participate in the spring molt. At all events the Hawaiian summer plover and turnstones that I have seen were, without exception, in the winter garb.

Food.--Lucien M. Turner (1886) says that, on their first arrival in Alaska, the plover “feed principally on berries of the Vaccinium and Empetrum, as many of these berries do not dislodge until succeeding growths push them off.” Others have noted the same habit in late summer and early fall. Some observers on the Pribilof Islands have noted that they frequent the killing grounds and feed extensively on the blowfly maggots there. But Preble and McAtee (1923) say that in the two stomachs that they examined “none of these larvæ were found, their food contents consisting of beetles, 72.5 per cent; flies, 22.5 per cent; Hymenoptera, 4 per cent; and seeds of crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), 1 per cent.”

Doctor Henshaw (1910) writes:

During its stay in the islands the plover, as also the turnstone, feed chiefly in the upland pastures and clearings, up to 6,000 or 7,000 feet, and on newly plowed cane land. Both the sugar planter and the stock raiser have much to thank the plover for, since, while the birds feed on small seeds to some extent, they live chiefly on insects, and according to Perkins, on insects of much economic importance, since they depend largely on the caterpillars of two of the most widely spread and destructive of the island “cut worms.” These insects are most abundant when the grass on the island pastures is green and luxuriant, and this usually is in winter, when rains are most copious.

Behavior.--The general behavior of the Pacific golden plover is not different from that of its commoner relatives. My personal acquaintance with it was made on the high rolling tundra and the foothills back of Nome, Alaska. Here we found it quite common during the middle of July, where it was evidently breeding or had been breeding; and we collected quite a series of adults, juvenals, and even downy young. As we walked over the tundra, we frequently heard their rich, melodious, whistling notes, or saw a richly colored adult, in full nuptial plumage, standing like a sentinel on some little hummock or ridge. Occasionally one would try to entice us away by running slowly through the hollows or by fluttering along the ground as if injured; but eventually it would take wing and circle back to where its young were probably hidden.

Mr. Brandt says in his notes:

The Pacific golden plover’s adroit movements in approaching his nest, made to deceive the hostile eye, were interesting, and well illustrate the tactics of the members of the plover family found about Hooper Bay. He would run rapidly without visible bodily effort, and then stop abruptly and remain motionless, not even turning his head. His course always lay across the little ridges, never along them, and he would follow the slight depressions, but usually came to a halt on a little eminence. When close to me, in order to get a wider range of vision, he would raise himself on the terminal joints of his toes and stretch up his neck, all with a jerky motion, the whole reminding me somewhat of the action of the burrowing owl. If agitated he ran rapidly to and fro, uttering an occasional piping note, but seldom taking wing.

Voice.--John T. Nichols describes the notes of this plover very well as follows:

I have met this western race of the golden plover only on its breeding grounds (at Nome, Alaska) where its notes are quite unlike the flight note of the eastern bird in migration, though some have almost an identical quality with that call. Running about on the ground, voicing noisy protest at the invasion of its ground, it has two unlike cries used interchangeably, peep! etc.; toodlee, etc.; the first plaintive, the second mellow. Other less frequent notes are tudleu and tdlu-eep suggesting the semipalmated plover. When the two members of a pair alight together for a moment a note of greeting suggests in form the whip-poor-will’s call, piterweeu, piterweeu, piterwit or peeperwip, peeperweeu, peeperwip.

A different, striking note is associated with what seems to be nuptial display. A bird circles at moderate height waving widespread wings in slow, measured, tern-like manner, meanwhile uttering a loud, long-drawn, sweet pee-er-wee, and in a few minutes dives to the tundra and alights. The form of this call is rather that of the black-bellied plover though its tone is that of the golden.

Miss Haviland (1915a) describes similar notes and observes that, “roughly speaking, the alarm note of the common golden plover is monosyllabic; that of the Asiatic golden plover is dissyllabic; and that of the gray plover is distinctly trisyllabic in character.”

Fall.--The plover which breed in Alaska migrate over Bering Sea, stopping on the Pribilof Islands; the first birds, probably adults, come during August; the young birds come later, mainly in September and October, with one very late date, November 5. The few available dates for the Aleutian and Commander Islands are also late, September and October, probably young birds. The first birds to reach the Hawaiian Islands are adults in breeding plumage; they arrive about the middle or latter part of August; and Doctor Henshaw (1910) says “that they are invariably in good flesh and that some are very fat. Later arrivals, however, no doubt young of the year, are comparatively poor in flesh and require considerable time to fatten.” This flight to these islands is a most remarkable feat, for, even granted that they can rest and feed to some extent on the surface of the ocean, it still remains a mystery how they can find this little group of islands in the middle of such a vast expanse of ocean. Doctor Henshaw (1910) makes some suggestions which throw some light on the subject; he says:

About September the wind that prevails in the North Pacific immediately south of the Aleutians is from the northwest. It is generally believed that migrating birds prefer to fly on a beam wind. By heading southwest, birds migrating to Hawaii might have the northwest abeam till about the neighborhood of latitude 30° where they would be almost sure to pick up the northeast trades. By then changing their course to southeast they would be enabled to fly with wind abeam till they sighted the islands. The Hawaiian Archipelago with the chain of low islands and sand spits to the northwest afford a reasonable chance for a successful landfall, since unitedly they stretch away in a very thin line for some 2,200 miles. Moreover the islands are close enough together so that migrants high in air would not be likely to miss them by passing between.

The birds which breed in Siberia are probably those that migrate through Mongolia and Japan and spend the winter in India, Burma, the Malay Archipelago, and Australia.

Winter.--Maj. G. Ralph Meyer has sent me the following notes on this plover in the Hawaiian Islands:

The plover are very plentiful and I see them passing over every day. They usually arrive about the middle of August and remain until the middle of March. Along about that time of the year they seem to congregate on the flats on the northeast end of the island and probably leave from there on the long flight to Alaska. During the winter they alternate between the plains of the high central plateau of the island and the lowland on both sides of the island. On the east side there is some low grassy land and they are common there. On this side they frequent tide flats during the low tides and then go up into the central plateau during the high tides. They perhaps spend some of the time in sheltered ponds on this side and wherever they can find muddy flats on which to feed.

The call note when flying is usually a whistled too-whee, easily imitated. They answer to the call note very readily and we use this when hunting them. We use plover decoys, placing them in the mud flats during high tide, and then at the turning of the tide the birds come from the direction of the mountains to feed. The decoys are placed on the highest part of the flats, so that the birds will have no other place to alight. We face the decoys up the wind, as the birds usually face that way when they are feeding. As they come near we call to them, merely imitating their call. They will circle around and finally decoy very nicely if they are not alarmed by any sudden movement. When circling around decoys they make a sort of chuckling noise, which I can not describe except as a chuckling whistle. Occasionally a wandering tattler will decoy and very often we get turnstones. On one occasion last year I saw a flock of about 20 to 30 birds, apparently turnstones, flying in a “V” or semicircle formation, and the leader was undoubtedly a plover. The birds were a couple of hundred feet in the air, so I could not be sure of the turnstones, but I was sure of the plover. He was leading them, for they followed him wherever he went. On a visit to Hawaii in July, 1916, I found plover on the slopes of Mauna Loa, one of the high mountains of the island. I have never seen them on this island during the summer.

W. B. Alexander tells me that this plover is--

a common visitor to Australian coasts, especially in summer, though some appear to be present at all seasons. While in Australia this species is usually found in small flocks and is partial to reedy swamps and the margins of lakes, as well as to estuaries fringed with mangroves. In fact, it evidently likes cover, though it may be met with on the open sea beach.