Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-22
LONG TRIPS OF BIRDS
GOLDEN PLoVER ONE OF THE
GREATEST TRAVELLERS

San Francisco to New York, two voyages
across the Atlantic and back and a run
down to Florida afterward. Even with the
assistance of express trains and ocean
liners, one who did this amount of trav-
cling year after year would hardly be
termed a stay -at-home," but If he had to
do it with the aid of his own good muscles
alone, he would need no other business to
give him steady employment.
1t would mean that he had to walk forty
four miles a day every day in the year.
That Is to say, he would have to start out
at o'clock in the morning and walk
steadily at the rate of four miles hour
until o'clock in the evening, with the ex-
ception of an hour each day for dinner. And
he would have to keep this up from the
time he was born until the time he died.
and then he would accomplish merely the
amount of travel Yet the golden plover
and certain other birds do this amount of
travelling, not as their life's work, but as a
part of it. In addition they supply them
selves with food, rear a family each sum-
mer. and still find time for a SIKH onths'
vacation every year.
"Winters" in Argentina.
When we say that the golden plover win
tiers" in Argentina, we mean that 1t there
passes the months which constitute our
winter. AS a matter of fact, it is the sum-
mer of the southern hemisphere, and when
the plovers arrive there in September they
find the native birds either nesting or pre-
pairing to nest. But this activity has no
effect upon the migrants from the north,
which have already reared one family, and
after a flight of eight thousand miles are
inclined to take things easy for a time.
Until March they are chiefly occupied in
providing themselves with food but in the
early part of that month they hear the
call which summons them once more on a
long and perilous journey. Giving up their
start, through Bolivia, western Brazil and
Peru. Then, whether they continue on
through Ecuador and cross the Gulf of
Panama, or whether they follow the 18TH
mus no man is sure; all we know about it
is that later in the month they appear in
Guatemala and Texas, reaching the latter
place by flying straight across the Gulf of
Mexico.
Reach Arctic Circle in June.
In April they ere found crossing the prai-
ries of the Mississippi valley, and before the
first of May they are going over our north
ern borders into Canada. By the first of
June they have reached their destination,
the inhospitable barren grounds above
the arctic circle. or even hundreds of miles
further north, where they take up the duties
which they came to perform. Though the
frozen hard, these plucky birds make their
simple nests in the moss, and lay their
four buffy eggs. In two months after their
arrival they have reared their families, and
the homeward journey is begun. But they
do not go home by the same route. First
they pay a visit to Labrador, where they
may be found at this season, in company
with turn stones and Eskimo curlews, feast
ing on the crowberry juicy black fruit
borne in profusion by a species of heather
which grows over the rocks and treeless
slopes of this bleak coast. The birds are
very fond of this fruit and eat such guam
titles of it that the flesh of the curlews
becomes stained dark purple with the juice
Journey to the Southwark.
The plovers now become Wy fat and very
strong, and are ready for their great jour-
ney to the southwark. They leave the land
at Nova Scotia and strike straight out to
sea. They now have eighteen hundred miles
of ocean between them and the first of the
Antilles and six hundred more to their OBJ
jective point on the mainland of South
America. True, there the Bermuda
Islands, eight hundred miles from Nova
Scotia, but If the weather is fair the birds
do not stop. but fly straight on, not only
to the Antilles, but sometimes even to the
mainland of South America itself.
OF course if a storm arises, and drives
them from the main track, they seek the
nearest land, and sometimes appear at Cape
Cod and on Long Island. Perhaps they
stop occasionally on the way, for these
plovers are good swimmers, and are some
times seen resting on the surface of the
ocean. But probably the voyage does not
fatigue them very much, since when they
reach the first land, and might alight as
easily as not, they prefer to continue their
flight, sometimes for hundreds of miles.
Long Trip Taxes Flowers Strength.
Well it is for them that they lay on SO
much fat before leaving Labrador, for the
voyage to the Antilles is a trying one and
they arrive lean and hungry. Here, or
upon the northeastern coast of South Amer
lea, they make a stop of three or four
weeks, perhaps, to recuperate. Then they
suddenly disappear, whittier no man knows
exactly, but later they reappear at the same
time in southern Brazil and in the prairie
region of Argentina, almost to Patagonia
and their long annual vacation begins once
more.
How they find their way no one knows;
no one knows even why this great journey
is taken each year. What we do know is
that the golden plover is one of the great
est travellers in the world.