While we’re waiting in this odd lull between cold fronts, I thought I’d introduce a new feature, where I pay tribute to an arbitrarily chosen migratory animal.  We’ll see if it sticks.

Today’s entry is in honor of Jeff Wilson, who went birding in DeSoto County this past Saturday–at the northern tip of the MS Delta–and found a remarkable concentration of shorebirds in flooded fields.  The bird of the day was the American Golden-Plover (Pluvialis dominica), of which Jeff estimated that over 5,000 individuals were present in this limited area, along with smaller numbers of yellowlegs, peeps, Pecs, snipe, and others.

5,000 Golden-Plovers may boggle the mind, but consider the results of one plover hunt near New Orleans in March 1821, during which an estimated 48,000 birds of this species were bagged.  (As a disclaimer, I would add that this figure comes to us via John James Audubon, who had something of a weakness for exaggeration.)  Plover meat was prized for its uncommonly good flavor, attributed by A. C. Bent to the bird’s “clean, upland feeding habits.”  Luckily, a tightening of game laws in the early twentieth century saved the species from the fate of its fellow traveler, the more or less extinct Eskimo Curlew.

Its dietary hygiene aside, another attribute that put a bull’s-eye on the Golden-Plover was its sheer plumpness.  Plovers arriving in Texas and Louisiana every spring, although somewhat fat-depleted after a taxing trans-Gulf flight, get right to work replenishing their fat stores to fuel the next leg of a spectacular flight.  The Golden-Plover’s migratory prowess is legendary.  Breeding on the tundra of far northern Canada and Alaska, they spend the winter on the pampas of Argentina and adjoining countries, where locals traditionally knew them as “chorlos” and hunted them with bolas (thrown balls on strings).  Their spring return flight takes them along a fairly conservative route–up the South American continent, across the Gulf, and along North America’s midsection–but their fall trip is epic.  Packing on as much as 30% of its weight in fat (partly by gorging on crowberries) at key stopover sites in eastern Canada, each plover then launches itself on a leap of faith into the tempestuous North Atlantic.  It counts on its fat reserves to see it through a two-day, nonstop, transoceanic flight, and after heading perversely towards the southeast, it counts on the easterly trade winds to deflect it toward South America.  Much of this flight seems to take place at dizzying altitudes, perhaps as high as 20,000 feet.

In addition to undergoing one of the longest and most improbable migrations of any bird, the Golden-Plover is a notorious speed demon.  Sustained flight can exceed 60 mph, sufficient to outrun a hungry Peregrine.  In 1951, after shooting at and, predictably, missing a flock of European Golden-Plovers in North Slob, Ireland, the estimable Sir Hugh Beaver, director of the Guinness Brewery, got to thinking (perhaps preceded by some drinking).  Those buggers were awfully fast, but were they the fastest game birds in Europe?  Grouse might be faster, but who knows?  Pointless questions like this were causing raucous debate in pubs everywhere, threatening to bring Britain and Ireland to their knees, and nobody had a reference to settle the disputes.  Thus was born the Guinness Book of World Records.  Trust me, I could not have made that up.