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Plovers come to grief

October 4, 2020 Don Knowler

It’s that time of the year when the normally shy and retiring plovers try to throw their weight around.
On open spaces they dive-bomb walkers, often coming out of nowhere to give everyone a scare, swooping so close that the rush of air from their wings can be felt on the head.
Much myth surrounds the spur-winged plovers, also known more formally as masked lapwings. It is said erroneously that the spurs situated on the fold of their wings are poisonous. The spurs, in fact, are designed purely to protect the ground-nesting birds from predators when they are on the nest and are of no danger to either humans or their dogs, who might disturb them in the grass.
The plovers appear aggressive at this time of year simply because they are defending eggs or young. Once the breeding season is over they return to their placid ways.
Because they love open spaces, including city parks, the plovers come into close contact with humans and each year this interaction brings heart-wrenching stories of plovers and their young coming to grief.
The latest concerns a reader who contacted me for some unusual advice: whether or not to let a male plover see the body of his mate who had died after being hit by a car.
The reader said that over the years a pair of plovers had brought their young to her insect-rich property but had to cross a road to reach it. In recent weeks the female had been hit by a car and, despite efforts to relive her, had died. The male appeared distraught, looking for his mate and the reader asked if seeing the female’s limp body would help the male move on with his life.
Plovers pair for life and I was in no doubt the male would be feeling a sense of loss and bereavement. The male in this case had also to contend with life as a single parent.
When the reader placed the female on the ground in view of the male, he went straight back to his offspring and, standing on a mound of grass, started making “a crazy manic kind of call”.
The reader’s anxiety increased when the male next day tried to bring the young across the highway in peak traffic. He led two of three chicks across the road and went back for the third, but the others followed him.
“I couldn’t watch. I had my hands over my eyes. It was very difficult without the mother bird looking after those that had crossed.”
Thankfully, the reader reported that after about half an hour the male decided he was not going to try the chicken-run manoeuvre again. And he has now decided the scrubland where the nest was situated is a safer bet than venturing to the reader’s garden.

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