Hooded Plover
Edition of 5
28 x 28cm
Reduction linocut, stencil and hand colouring, handmade paper corners.
When I first saw these tiny shorebirds running across the sand at Cape Woolamai, their little legs moving frantically beneath them, the little ‘levitating’ Hooded Plover appeared more like a hovercraft than a bird, making me laugh.
Hooded Plovers are commonly seen in pairs. As Phillip Island’s most endangered bird, there are only 23 pairs on the Island at present. They fossick in the intertidal zone and lay eggs at the high tide mark, camouflaging them in sand and seaweed. Here nests are easily disturbed, damaged and abandoned. From 90 eggs laid in 2020, only 9 chicks survived to fledge.