The Plover Incident

I don't know what it is with us and bloody birds but we haven't been having a good run with them. We are now at week 7 of our trip, we have moved to Evans Head, NSW. 


 Luckily there are only a few bush turkeys at this caravan park, and we're pretty good at chasing them away if they do come close. This caravan park has a lot of plovers. We hadn't seen them before, so I didn't think twice about letting little miss chase them away. 

Plovers make the most annoying squawking noise, and we joked often about how much they sounded like her. In this particular park (which was very big over 300 sites) there were multiple plover families, with up to 4 babies. We first paid close attention them when little miss and I walked to the local shops. We walked past a family that had 3 babies. 


Little miss normally chased the parents but this time she started chasing the babies. I was very quick to stop her. She said she wanted to catch one to take it home and look after it, we had a little dicussion about how their wild animals and she can't keep them. We continued on our way and I didn't think any more about it. 

 Little miss took a liking to some neighbours that had moved in next door and every time we walked past them she wanted to stop and have a chat. They were really friendly and lovely to talk with and we knew how much she loved talking with them. 

One night we left for our evening walk and we went past their site first, and of course we got to chatting and stopped our evening walk (big mistake). Well after talking with them for about 5 minutes little miss was bored but she was playing behind me quietly so I didn't think much of it. Until I hear Jamie screaming out stop. I turned around to see Jamie bolting after Little miss and she's dived on the ground. 

After about a minute the Plovers started squawking and I thought she had squashed 2 out of the 4 babies when she dove on top of them. Jamie very carefully picked up one of the babies, it seemed to spring back to life so he carefully put it down before doing the same for the other. As he turned to come back both adult plovers had started swooping Jamie, they didn't swoop little miss which was surprising. We hurriedly said goodnight and bundled little miss away and into bed (after washing her hands). 

Once in bed I asked her what she thought would happen. In her mind the babies were so cute that she thought she could catch them and bring them inside the camper trailer and make a little nest for them to look after them. When I asked her what she would feed them she smiled and said bird seed. I could see she'd put a lot of thought into what she would do to look after them, even if it wasn't the right thing to do. 

 Her face dropped when I told her that the mummy and daddy birds were really upset that she tried to take their babies, and that we'd be really sad if someone tried to take her away even if they would look after her. I had to explain (didn't think I'd have to do this) that wild animals don't like being caught and they can't come into the camper trailer. 

On subsequent walks or any time we walked up the street we were stalked by the plovers, with the babies being very quickly moved away. Previous to all this Little miss had been pretending to have invisible dogs, even going so far as to giving them away to people we passed as we walked. We had to implement a few new rules to the camper trailer. Little miss hasn't tried to catch any other animals since! 

Lessons we Learned 
  • Little miss wants a pet 
  • Plovers don't like their babies being caught 
  • Little miss is quicker and more determined than we realised 
  • Baby plovers can freeze in fright 
  • Plover don't forget 
  • Plovers have spikes on their wings and they will swoop 

New Rule in the Camper Trailer 
  • No animals, pets or live animals allowed in the camper trailer 
  • Invisible dogs and pretend stuff animals allowed
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