Swooping Success

plov·er 

[pluhv-er, ploh-ver]

–noun
1. any of various shorebirds of the family Charadriidae. Compare dotterel, , killdeer, lapwing.
2. swooping plovers (lapwings) are a common problem throughout Australia. Rarely do they cause harm by actual contact but this has been known to happen. The spur on the wing has been known to inflict scratches.
3. the male aggressively defends the nest. Sometimes contact is made with the unfortunate person and blood is drawn.



Today on the program were 2km run repeats. I normally do these sessions among the safe confides of Melbourne's parks and trails, where there are many places to find shelter should the fickle Melbourne weather cave in, many people to alert should some form of wildlife launch its attack, and many pit stops dotted around the place should nature call. However, since I am currently in the far south of Tasmania I found myself having to complete my run at the local oval at a town called "Snug". Now don't be fooled by the name of a town. Many would think that "Snug" would be a town full of warm fuzziness, but today that would not be the case and I once again found myself battling with the forces of wildlife...this time being the deadly, vicious, swooping Plover.

Now my fear of Plovers is a lot more real than that of the bear, mountain lion, snake, shark, etc, etc, as I often found myself in battle with the conniving bird whilst running during my high school years in Launceston. So when I realised that I was going to have to complete today's run at the Snug oval (Plover breeding ground) I made sure that I first did my research.

It started off with a casual drive-by of the oval to see if there were in fact any of the Plovers present, and yes there were. Hmmm. So then I decided to walk past the birds to see if they were to swoop, and much to my delight they just sat there casually eyeing me off. I felt this to be an encouraging sign, but I still wasn't entirely convinced. So I went home and did various google searches : "plover+attack", "plover+swooping season" and so on. All results came up with the primary swooping season being that of Spring. Hooray I thought, I will conquer the Plover today!

So off I trotted on the 5km warm-up jog down to the Snug oval to complete my session. Once I arrived I was pleased to note that all Plover's were scattered and didn't seem to be partaking in their common mob mentality behaviour, and I therefore assured myself that I would not be prone to swooping today. However at this very point all things started to go pear-shaped - out of the corner of my eye I spotted a dog full of joy come bounding across the oval. That is when all hell broke lose and Plover after Plover started swooping the dog left, right and centre. The dog thought it was hilarious, the Plovers were on the angrier side of angry, and I was left standing there no shelter to hide under, no casual passer-by to latch on to. The dog and Plover battle went on for a good 10 minutes until eventually the hound tired of the never ending entertainment and retreated back home, leaving me there to battle it out with the now swooping, now angry Plovers.

I assessed the situation. Would it be better to run the 2km's on the road avoiding the Plovers all together, or should I man up and take on the Plover once and for all?? I eventually talked myself into facing up to my fear and promptly began my run. But just to reiterate the fear...I was doing 2km reps on a 400m oval, and there was one prominent swooping location, so I was passing these swooping beasts 5 times per rep. However considering this was battle, there had to be a winner and a loser. One of us was going to have to tire and cave in first, and today it was not to be me I told the Plover. So off I went getting swooped 5 times each reps.

However as the session progressed, the swooping lessened. Hooray I was making in-roads! The Plovers seemed to find a happy medium until eventually they retreated all together. Woohoo today was the monumental day that I did in fact conquer my greatest fear being that of the wildlife variety. Greatness has been accomplished! So until next time it is me-1, Plover-0...