Julie is in town for an extended visit, so Kailua resident Susan Scott always makes sure she has scrambled eggs on hand. “She sees me through the lanai screen doors getting coffee in the morning and waits there as if to say, ‘Come on, Susan, give up the eggs,’” said Scott, a biologist who writes the weekly Ocean Watch column for the Star-Advertiser. “She doesn’t come if anyone else is in the kitchen. Just me.”

Kolea is the Hawaiian name for Pacific golden plovers like Julie, who come to the balmy islands in August and head back to Alaska the last week of April to mate and raise their chicks. They are part of a larger population of the same species that breeds in Alaska and Siberia and winters in other locales across the Pacific, including Tahiti, Palau, Yap, Tonga, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand.

“Kolea return to the same ‘homes’ in Hawaii every year, be it a park, yard, golf course or condominium courtyard,” Scott said. “People are so excited when they see ‘their’ kolea have returned.”

Scott co-authored “Hawaii’s Kolea: The Amazing Transpacific Life of the Pacific Golden-Plover” with Oscar “Wally” Johnson, a research scientist at Montana State University who is the world expert on the species. They will be presenting a slide show, sharing the latest kolea research and discussing their book, which University of Hawaii Press released in December, at Volcano Art Center’s upcoming Thursday Night at the Center program.

According to Scott, kolea living in urban areas are often tame, friendly and fun to watch. “One Ocean Watch reader told me his neighbor had put an old television on the curb for pickup, and his kolea was fascinated by her reflection on the screen,” she said. “She lingered there, looking as though she was watching TV.”

Scott started writing about kolea in Ocean Watch in the mid-1990s because readers had often asked her questions about them. She connected with Johnson, who provided information and invited her to help him put radio transmitters on a bird at Bellows Air Force Station during one of his annual trips to Hawaii to study kolea.

“When I held that gentle, fluffy creature in my hands, I fell head over heels in love,” Scott said. “Wally continued to publish scientific papers and kept me up to date on his research.”

A close friendship developed, and two years ago Scott suggested they collaborate on a primer about kolea for the general public. “It’s easy reading with lots of color photos,” she said. “The presentation Wally and I will be doing on Thursday will also be a great introduction to one of nature’s most beautiful and amazing birds.”

About Thursday Night at the Center

For the past two years, Volcano Art Center has hosted presentations at its Niaulani campus in Volcano village that spotlight Hawaii’s natural history and are often enhanced by the arts, including music, sculptures, paintings, poetry, photography and Hawaiian chants.

“We’ve featured our gallery exhibits, dance performances, art films and talks by local artists, authors and scientists,” said Cheryl Wilson, VAC’s program coordinator. “Our program committee tries to select topics that we think are interesting to the community, and people contact us with ideas, too. It’s all about education, entertainment and bringing our community together. We originally intended to have a monthly presentation, but sometimes we offer two during a month.”

Coming up: On April 6, Development Coordinator Rae Okawa will introduce the history, mission and vision of the Hawaii Wildlife Center (www.hawaiiwildlifecenter.org). John Hoover will be on hand April 27 to discuss his book “The Ultimate Guide to Hawaiian Reef Fishes, Sea Turtles, Dolphins, Whales and Seals.” Alexander Guerrero, the instructor of VAC’s Hawaiian-language class, will share insights about the language May 4.

Did you know…

>> The Pacific golden plover is a member of a large group of birds ornithologists call shorebirds. But although they occasionally feed along shorelines, plovers spend most of their time inland, preferring open spaces with short vegetation such as cemeteries, golf courses and lawns.

>> From October through February, males and females are in winter plumage and look identical. Come spring, males in breeding plumage are much more colorful than females and have a white “racing stripe” down the sides of their neck and body.

>> It takes kolea about three days to fly from Hawaii to Alaska. Tracking studies indicate that the birds make a nonstop flight of roughly 3,000 miles, averaging 40 miles per hour. Nonstop return flights take about four days, the slower pace probably due to adverse winds.

>> Adult kolea are about 10 inches long. At their lightest they weigh about 3.7 ounces, a bit less than an average bar of soap. At their heaviest, just before they take off for Alaska from Hawaii, the birds weigh close to 7 ounces, the weight of a softball. At that time nearly 40 percent of their body mass is fat — fuel for the long upcoming flight.

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.