Ringed plover

“ The motion of the legs does not belong to the gait, for the bird stands still whilst making it, and then advances a few steps at a time, with little pauses between each advance, during which the legs are quivered." The legs of the ringed plover are of a fine orange colour, and the male's drawing himself up so as to display them more fully, and then moving them quickly in this way before the female, suggests that they are appreciated by her. ”

“ The common ringed plover, Ae. hiaticula, has many of the habits of the killdeer, but is much less often found away from the sea-shore, though a few colonies may be found in dry warrens in certain parts of England many miles from the coast, and in Lapland at a still greater distance. ”

“ In spring or early summer nearly the whole of the lower plumage from the chin to the vent, which during winter has been nearly pure white, becomes deep black. A corresponding alteration is at the same season observable in the upper plumage.
Though the birds just spoken of are those most emphatically entitled to be called plovers, the group of ringed plovers (see Killdeer and Lapwing) , with its allies, has, according to usage, hardly less claim to the name, which is also extended to some other more distant forms that can here have only the briefest notice. ”

“ March.
30th.—One Lapwing, one Grey Plover, one Little Grebe, two Larks, one Fieldfare, and several Chaffinches struck and were killed. Wind W.N.W., overcast, and drizzling rain.
April.
18th.—The Ringed Plovers are breeding; several nests have from one to two eggs. ”

“ Corn-Crake (Crex pratensis) .—Five eggs taken on Foula in 1897 were shown us.
Golden Plover (Charadrius pluvialis) .—Only a few pairs seen, near Walls and in Unst; evidently nesting.
Ringed Plover (Ægialitis hiaticula) .—Very common on holms and stony barrens; sometimes also on loch-sides inland. Abundant in the interior of Papa Stour, where the surface has been stripped of sods, leaving a waste of sharp-edged red and white shingle, with scraps of sickly vegetation. ”

“ While the nighthawk's monotonous cry and intermittent boom and the indistinct voice of the whippoorwill ring out in the late twilight of the July evenings, the alarmed, half-guttural chuckle of the grass plover is heard, so early migrating in light marching order, thin in flesh but strong of wing, a poor prize for the gunner whose ardor outruns his humanity and better judgment. Lean or fat, a plover is a plover, but would that he might tarry with us till the plump grasshoppers of August and September had clothed his breast and ribs with fatness. ”

“ Adults in summer with the back, wings and tail barred or marked with black and white; top of head and nape white, except for a few black markings on the crown; face, throat, breast and fore part of belly, black. In winter, brownish-black, somewhat mottled, above; below dull white. Young similar to winter adults, but the back is spotted with yellowish-white. While these handsome plover migrate to some extent, and sometimes in large flocks, through the interior of the United States, they are chiefly and most abundantly found on the coast. They are the plover most eagerly sought by gunners. ”

“ There are numerous kinds of plover that make their migratory passages along our coasts; but the one to which I refer, while to the epicure it ranks almost, if not absolutely, the first upon the list, and affords, by the swiftness of its flight and the eccentricity of its habits, a prize not unworthy of the highest efforts of the sportsman, has been the victim of many a misnomer, but is correctly known by the appellation American Golden Plover, Charadrius pluvialis (P.) . The Plover-family is large and of high respectability ”

“ The vast flocks of plovers that congregate in autumn are said to be growing in numbers. Hundreds of thousands of eggs are collected annually; bunches of green plover are displayed at the gameshops during the autumn; and yet there are more of these birds in England than ever there were. This may be accounted for by the closeness with which the plover conforms to its environment through every season. The plover is dainty eating, as are also its eggs. "To live like a plover"—meaning to live on the wind—is a saying of no aptitude. All the species are voracious feeders on substantials. ”

“ The flocks of golden plover are usually smaller than those of green, and are more compact. When feeding together the two kinds are not easily discriminated. The moment they take wing, however, a difference is detected; the golden plover flying straight and quick, often in a V-shaped bunch; the green going loosely and without apparent order. All plover are restless and shifting before a change of weather, and when this is for the worse the golden plover always fly south. They are delicate birds, in fact, and little fitted to withstand the rigours of our northern climate. ”

“ The bird is in no way adapted to transport its young through the air.
There are upwards of a dozen species of British plover; birds interesting to the naturalist, dear to the heart of the shore-shooter and to the sportsman of the marshes. Some of these are summer visitants to our shores, others come in winter, while a few stay with us throughout the year. The common green plover or peewit, with its crest, its peculiarly rounded wings, its plaintive cry, is the best known; and this species breeds with us, as the abundance of its eggs shows. ”

“ Another notable species, the golden plover, is a cosmopolitan, and a remarkable migrant, journeying from its arctic breeding place to the tropics, not only overland, but across thousands of miles of ocean, as from Nova Scotia direct to Bermuda, and Alaska to Hawaii. The crested "lapwing" of Europe is another famous species. The plovers have short bills and live on insects ”

“ The plover is a fine bird, and is found in great numbers upon the plains and in the cultivated fields of the islands. Plovers are very shy and wary, but they have ingenious enemies to deal with. A waggon or carriage of some sort is made use of to approach them, and then they are easily killed. ”

“ Good sport and delicate fare are afforded also by the great tribe of "shore birds"—plovers, yellowlegs, curlews, snipe, and the various sandpipers that feed along the seashores or frequent the inland marshes of every part of the world, nowhere more numerously than along our much embayed eastern coast. The plovers are especially interesting, and one of them, the noisy killdeer, is familiar all over the country, breeding in upland fields, where four brown and spotted eggs are laid in a little hollow of the open ground, plover fashion. ”

“ P. Belon (1555) says that the name Pluvier is bestowed “pour ce qu'on le prend mieux en temps pluvieux qu'en nulle autre saison,” which is not in accordance with modern observation, for in rainy weather plovers are wilder and harder to approach than in fine. Others have thought it is from the spotted (as though with rain-drops) upper plumage of two of the commonest species of plovers, to which the name especially belongs—the Charadrius pluvialis of Linnaeus, or golden plover, and the Squatarola helvetica of recent ornithologists, or grey plover. ”

“ Broken—yes, broken by the quavering wail of the plover pacing the grassy marge near its nest; by an occasional crash, as a heavy trout leaps high and falls back from its keen pursuit. But stay a moment yet, ere the rod is drawn out, to watch the ephemeræ dancing just above the surface of the water. They wheel in scores, they soar by hundreds; yet every movement seems to bring death close, for one here and one there, in a clumsy swerve, touches the water: its frail wings are damped so that it cannot rise again to the airy quadrille of its companions. ”

“ Is there a little consciousness of the spring-freshened colours of his plumage and pride in the dainty touch of his wings on the sweet wind? His love is watching his wayward course. He prolongs it. He has but a few yards to fly to reach the well-known feeding-ground by the brook where the grass is short; perhaps it has been eaten off by sheep. It is a straight and easy line—as a starling would fly. The plover thinks nothing of a straight line: he winds first with the curve of the hedge, then rises, uttering his cry, aslant, wheels, and returns ”

“ I did think you knew the difference between a duck of any sort and a plover!"
"You call 'em plov——?"
Here one of the birds stretched its neck, flapped its wings, gave a hop and a short run, plover-ways, and finished with the typical harsh note.
"Great Donald! you're right, man!" finished the boy, in a mortified tone and with a considerable amount of disgust.
"Oh, well," he resumed, after a moment's silence, "a few plover won't come amiss, especially if we don't collar any more duck. Like 'em myself, grilled, as well as anything; they've such plump little breasts. Pull on, Joe." ”

“ Here they feed liberally and at large, becoming plump and fat. On these grounds the birds often remain till the return of spring. Although many are shot, most of the birds that find their way to market are taken in nets by professional fowlers. When the flocks are heaviest, and during hard weather, from fifty to eighty plovers are sometimes secured at one raising of the net.
Flying with the lapwing may often be seen flocks or "trips" of golden plover—one of the most beautiful birds of its family, and much less common as a species than the last. ”

“ They must never be allowed to come broadside to the stream, for being flat-bottomed they would at once be capsized and everything in them lost." When free from fever he was delighted to note the numbers of birds, several of them unknown, which swarmed on the river and its banks, all carefully noted in his journal. One extract must suffice here: "Whenever we step on shore a species of plover, a plaguy sort of public-spirited individual, follows, flying overhead, and is most persevering in its attempts to give warning to all animals to flee from the approaching danger." ”

“ The Black-bellied Plover feeds largely on minute mollusks, shrimps, worms, sea insects and on various larvae found in the marshes. It also eats grasshoppers and late in the season, at the North, berries form a large part of its diet. It is at this time that its flesh is most eagerly sought by the connoisseur of game food. Food is gathered with a quick stroke and from the surface, for the bird cannot probe for its food as do the sandpipers. ”

“ We saw the rare piping plover, whose nest I was afterwards to find in Upper Canada, black skimmers, with their strange slant-cut beaks, black tern, least tern, loons, black-bellied plover, and everywhere throughout the salt-meadows enormous great-blue herons.
This was the last trip of our quartette for the [Pg 119] summer, and we are looking forward to many more springs and summers among the bird-folk. Let me end as I began—go bird’s-nesting. Escape into the open from these narrow in-door days, and learn the way to where the wild-folk dwell. Seek their paterans and share their secrets. ”

“ Occasionally a 74 fair sprinkling of Sanderlings and Dunlins may be observed in the flocks of this species. If seriously alarmed the entire flock will mount up high, and go off to a distant part of the coast, or even divide into several smaller ones, each retiring to a different spot; but almost invariably they return, and reform into a single company on the old familiar sands, within a hour or so of their scattered departure. The food of this pretty little Plover consists of the smaller creatures of the shore, such as minute sand-worms, shrimps, sand-hoppers, tiny molluscs, and insects. ”

“ If at this period, or during incubation, a person approaches their retreats, the male especially, but frequently the female also, flies up to meet the intruder, settles on a tuft near him, or runs along and uses the same artifices for decoying him from the nest or young as the Plover or Ring Dotterel. When the young are fledged, the birds gather into small flocks, which often in the evenings unite into larger, and join those of the Golden Plover. They rest at night on the smoother parts of the heath, and both species, when resting by day, either stand or lie on the ground. ”

“ In April and May thousands of plovers' eggs are annually sent to the London markets from all parts of the country. The gourmets' appreciation of this delicacy causes an ever-increasing demand, which, however rapid its growth, will always be met. For the green plover is one of the commonest of British birds, and is greatly on the increase. It flocks during the winter, and according to the severity or openness of the weather indulges in short local migrations from the plashy meadows and uplands to the sea-coast. ”

“ N the Missouri river region and in contiguous parts of the interior of the United States, the Belted Piping Plover is a common summer resident, and is found along the shores of the great lakes, breeding on the flat, pebbly beach between the sand dunes and shore. It is the second of the ring-necked Plovers, and arrives in April in scattering flocks, which separate into pairs a month later. It strays at times into the interior, and has been known to breed on the borders of ponds many miles from the coast. ”

“ The grey plover is a bird of almost circumpolar range, breeding in the far north of America, Asia and eastern Europe, frequenting in spring and autumn the coasts of the more temperate parts of each continent, and generally retiring farther southward in winter—examples not infrequently reaching Cape Colony, Ceylon, Australia and even Tasmania. ”