As usual in spring my email inbox has been full of readers’ observations about our departing kolea, the remarkably adaptive Pacific golden plovers that choose Hawaii’s yards and parks for their home territory.
I think of our islands as the birds’ home, because even though they nest and raise chicks in Alaska, adults are there for only May, June and July, give or take a week or so on either end. Come August (or July if a fox, jaeger or other predator eats a couple’s chicks), our kolea begin arriving back in Hawaii to once again light up our lawns. We then have them for nine-plus months to enjoy, pamper and protect.
Chicks stay on the tundra longer, gobbling up all the food they can find before the snow falls. Given climate change, this may be later in autumn than in the past. The summer’s chicks can arrive in Hawaii as late as November, depending on the Arctic weather.
Most emails reported mid-April dates that their birds (named Lady, Freddie, Goldie, Grace, etc.) left. A few readers wrote of seeing the birds gathering in flocks of various sizes around Oahu.
One kolea fan, Ted, was lucky in 2012 to witness plovers arriving and leaving Kailua Beach Park. Ted writes that the birds “flew in from all directions, ignoring cars, paddlers, chain saws, bulldozers, people. … I was almost hit by a stream of birds … in the parking lot.” The birds covered the grass and, after a few false starts, all rose as one, “made an orbit of the park and then they were gone.” The event happened so fast that Ted didn’t have time to grab his camera.
Another reader, Robert, wrote that he noticed his Mililani plovers were gone on April 24. The next day as he drove down Kamehameha Highway, he noticed a large tight flock of birds, about 200, moving high and fast. “I can’t say with complete certainty I saw a flock of plovers. But can’t think of what else it could have been.” Nor can I.
Ted and several other readers wondered whether we had a reduced plover population this year. It seemed to some bird watchers that Oahu hosted about half the usual number of kolea.
No one knows because no one is counting, nor has anyone ever counted. Doing an annual kolea census, though, is an idea that needs pursuing.
Volunteers might start a citizen science project similar to that of the all-volunteer “Hui Manu-o-Ku” (white terns) to count Oahu’s plovers. Rich Downs, the dedicated manager of the hui, took on our city’s white terns as his post-retirement career and is a constant inspiration to all of us who know him. To see what a team of volunteers can do to help Hawaii’s native species, check out whiteterns.org.
Thank you all for sharing your stories so I can share them, too. And thank you, kolea, for coming home when your job is done. We know we can count on you.
To reach Susan Scott, go to www.susanscott.net and click on “Contact” at the top of her home page.
