Hawaiʻi’s Kōlea: A Plover Lover’s Valentine

1. Hawaiʻi has its own kōlea population that spends winters in Hawaiʻi and summers breeding in Alaska. (Kōlea never nest or raise chicks in Hawaiʻi.)

2. The Hawaiian Islands are one of the few places in the world where kōlea associate closely with humans. In most other areas, the birds view people as predators.

3. A larger Pacific Golden-Plover population winters in New Zealand, Australia, and Pacific Islands. The South Pacific birds breed in Siberia and further north in Alaska than Hawaiʻi birds.

4. Researchers have no plover counts from the past to compare with the present, but land clearing, beginning with ancient Polynesian settlers, has created ideal wintering grounds for the birds.

5. Kōlea eat anything that crawls that the bird can catch. Plover meals in Hawaiʻi today are nearly all introduced species: insects (including cockroaches), beetles, earthworms, millipedes, spiders, slugs, and more.

6. Researchers know of two kōlea that lived at least 21 years, however, a kōlea’s average lifespan is six-to-seven years. (Migration is dangerous.)

7. Kōlea fly nonstop over the North Pacific Ocean between Hawaiʻi and Alaska in 3-to-4 days, averaging 40 miles per hour.

8. Hawaiʻi’s kōlea arrive in the Islands from late July through November, depending on Alaska weather conditions. Females come first, then males, then the summer’s offspring. Chicks migrate by instinct on their own, unguided by adults.

9. Most kōlea are solitary and fiercely territorial, but not all. Some plovers forage together, the group sharing a larger territory than an individual.

10. We don’t know if Hawaiʻi’s kōlea population is increasing, decreasing or staying the same. Plover lovers can help answer this unknown by joining the Kōlea Count, our citizen science project.