One-Legged Birds


I went for a beach walk today hoping to see Comet McNaughton along with the sunset. A layer of clouds along the horizon covered the sunset and the comet.


On my walk I ran into a whole flock of one-legged birds. I couldn’t imagine this being normal so when I got home I did some research. Apparently some birds (I think these are a type of Plover) participate in this one legged activity as a game. They can actually tuck the other leg up under the feathers so it can’t be seen. Once one bird starts the activity many in the group will follow. They will even hop around on the one leg instead of using both. This behavior was described in a couple of articles. They don’t know why the birds do it.

To my question of how legs were lost the answer was motorcycle accidents – well, not really, it was entanglement with monofilament that was the chief culprit.


So my worry today about seeing a flock of 25 Plovers all with one leg was not well founded. I was watching a group at play. (maybe they were playing pirates)

You can see in the upper left one of the birds is actually hopping away on a single leg!