Pacific golden plovers fitted with new, lightweight tracking devices flew nonstop from Oahu to Alaska at 39 mph, covering nearly 3,000 miles in just three days, according to the first study of its kind.

The birds then made the return trip to their Oahu wintering grounds in about four days during their annual migrations in 2009 and 2010.

“No one ever knew how fast they flew,” said Montana State University Professor Wally Johnson, the lead researcher on the project that included researchers from Brigham Young University-Hawaii. 

Johnson was less impressed with tracking data that showed the Pacific golden plovers did not stop on their travels between Hawaii and Alaska.

“There’s no place to land out there,” he said. “If they had landed on water, there was no evidence of water contact.”

The project was funded primarily by BYU-Hawaii with support from the Hawaii Audubon Society.

The study of the Pacific golden plovers became possible because of new technology. 

BYUH researchers used the nonlethal “Super Talon” net gun used by law enforcement to capture some of 24 Pacific golden plovers during daylight hours at the birds’ winter nesting grounds on flat grasslands on the BYUH campus and at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.

In early morning hours, researchers captured the birds using mist nets.

Researchers then attached miniaturized data “loggers” to the birds’ legs, using unwaxed dental floss and marine epoxy.   

The loggers functioned on 20 of the 24 birds, which were tracked to their Alaskan breeding grounds that ranged from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to nearly the tip of the Alaska Peninsula.

Johnson has been studying Pacific golden plovers in Hawaii since 1979.

“I go way back with plovers,” he said.