Rising Tide Images
Probing Plover
A kōlea probes the damp soil for earthworms. A Pacific golden plover patrols the Oahu shoreline and reestablishes his territory after a five-month summer breeding season in arctic Alaska. With his seasonal mating plumage fading this shorebird looks for food to replenish his body fat. The return trip traversed approximately 3,000 miles of open ocean requiring an exhaustive 3 to 4 days and nights of nonstop flight. Incredibly, some kōlea will continue their marathon semiannual migration to oceanic islands of the southern Pacific resulting in an annual round trip total of about 15,000 miles. Their fledglings set off from the tundra searching for an island and a suitable territory a month or two after the adults have departed. Many fledgling birds probably miss landfall and perish at sea. Survivors are superb navigators with territorial fidelity, using the stars and the earth’s magnetic field to find their way over the featureless ocean to the same small patch of land every year. Like most transoceanic migratory birds, they may use the earth’s magnetic field visually with the magnetoreception molecules of cryptochrome in their retina.
Probing Plover
A kōlea probes the damp soil for earthworms. A Pacific golden plover patrols the Oahu shoreline and reestablishes his territory after a five-month summer breeding season in arctic Alaska. With his seasonal mating plumage fading this shorebird looks for food to replenish his body fat. The return trip traversed approximately 3,000 miles of open ocean requiring an exhaustive 3 to 4 days and nights of nonstop flight. Incredibly, some kōlea will continue their marathon semiannual migration to oceanic islands of the southern Pacific resulting in an annual round trip total of about 15,000 miles. Their fledglings set off from the tundra searching for an island and a suitable territory a month or two after the adults have departed. Many fledgling birds probably miss landfall and perish at sea. Survivors are superb navigators with territorial fidelity, using the stars and the earth’s magnetic field to find their way over the featureless ocean to the same small patch of land every year. Like most transoceanic migratory birds, they may use the earth’s magnetic field visually with the magnetoreception molecules of cryptochrome in their retina.