ML619648804

Age and sex

Adult Male - 1

Behaviors

Foraging or eating

Tags

Habitat

Observation details

At around 10:19 a.m. Green Dot flew in and landed in the NE quadrant of the Montrose Beach Dunes Natural Area (MBDNA) about 150 feet W of the fishhook pier. As noted in Cairns 1982 (Biology and behavior of breeding Piping Plovers. Wilson Bull. 94: 531-545) male Piping Plovers "perform elaborate flights above their territories apparently to advertise ownership to rival males and prospective females. In flight, deep, slow wing-beats and an alternate tilting of the body from side-to-side produce a fluttering flight, making the bird more conspicuous than in normal flight. Display flights, which last up to 30 min, traverse elliptical and figure eight courses from just above ground level up to ca. 35 m. Aerial displays are usually accompanied by calls. The more common call is a continuous rapid series of high-pitched calls". This male (Green Dot) performed such an aerial display flight from 10:22-10:23 a.m., and as noted, the deep, slow wingbeats of this display make the bird quite conspicuos and made it look (to me) larger than usual when in normal flight. During this display, Green Dot gave a steady vocal "delivery" of the call notes that Sibley describes as "alarm peeps" (at the rate of about 2.85 call notes/second).

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

ISO

800

Focal length

247 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.5

Shutter speed

1/200 sec

Dimensions

4608 pixels x 3456 pixels

Original file size

4.08 MB