Pacific golden plover - masters of flight

Non-breeding plumage of Pacific Golden Plover

The thing that stands out about this bird is the beautiful golden feathering woven through its dorsal area.  Looking closely at the feathers, you see that individual feathers are dark brown with golden scalloped edges.  I enlarged a section so you can see the pattern for yourself.

I enlarged the back of the plover to allow a better look at the feathering.

The pacific golden plover is one of the few birds that migrates to Hawaii.  All plovers travel remarkable distances, but I find that this one species does so over open ocean with no landmarks at all for thousands of miles.  It takes them three or four days to travel from their breeding grounds along the coast of Alaska to Hawaii where they overwinter.  They are not birds that swim and must remain aloft the entire time.  The kicker is the way they do this.

A solo plover would likely die making the attempt.  However, if a group of them align in a V-formation, the average energy required per bird to make the flight is less.  This is because the lead bird produces an upwash that generates a bit of extra lift to the bird adjacent and behind it.  This savings occurs for each bird in the line.  The leader switches with another member so as to maintain its own energy reserves.

The birds may lose upwards of half their body weight in making the trip.  If, for some reason, they missed the islands, they would perish as they could not continue flying indefinitely.  How exactly they manage to leave the shores of Alaska and head in the right direction for Hawaii is beyond me; I could not find any information on this.  Isn't it amazing?

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com