American Golden Plover

Golden Plover. Photo by Peter SchoenbergerCouldn’t the officer tell that we were in a hurry because we wanted to see and to photograph the American Golden Plover? What would the world be like if that might be an excuse for making the U-turn where the sign with the red bar across it tells us not to. I wanted to tell the officer that this was a bird just passing through, one that had spent the summer in the Arctic, perhaps raising its young. It was now heading south, off the continent of North America. Could he understand that this was a special bird, worthy of an illegal U-turn?

The bird waited for us, gathering its worms on the rain-drenched end of a driving range in Kingston. It went about its business while Canada geese waddled nearby. But it was alone. This, I thought, was wrong. Early accounts of the bird have them traveling in the millions. Audubon on March 16, 1821 heads out with his gun “to see the Passage of Millions of Golden Plovers Coming from the Nort Est and going Nearly Oest—the destruction of these innocent fugitives from a  Winter Storm above us was really astonishing.” That is, he watches a man kill 63 dozen. That’s 756 birds.

American Golden Plover. Photo by Peter SchoenbergerHere was one. And it was beautiful with its speckled back, a beautiful pattern.  It had a large black eye, staring into the world, and a grey chest above grey legs. The bold beauty of the bird was worth that illegal U-turn. Peter crouched to the ground and photographed the bird while I looked through my binoculars, wanting to absorb the spirit of one lone bird heading south.