The animal kingdom is dominated by open sex. Bats, beetles, and bonobos all have multiple partners during a season or throughout their lives. Barnacles and barracuda are unable to choose a mate and simply release their eggs and sperm into a milky cloud in the water. However, non-monogamous birds are much more rare. About 90% of birds are socially monogamous. This means that they typically choose a partner to live with and raise their young with. Without boundaries of sexual exclusivity. For many birds, monogamy makes sense. Tiny, naked chicks are essentially helpless, and the round-the-clock care they require is easier for two people. Expectations for each parent bird are clear, and this care often follows an established script for each species.
The small, timid plover is one such monogamous bird. A pair of white-faced plovers hatch a nest. During the day, the female sits on the nest, and at night, the male takes over. As temperatures heat up around noon, both parents step in to cool the eggs. This simple routine certainly works, and has done so for thousands of years for many white-faced plovers roaming the coasts of East Asia. It seems like everyone is there except this guy.
In 2023, a male plover living on an island off the southern Chinese port city of Zhanjiang was living according to traditional plover norms. He found a mate, a female plover. They live together like plovers, taking turns brooding and roosting on eggs. But in 2024, for reasons unknown to anyone else, he found another female plover with whom he felt an immediate connection.
This may sound like cheating, but it’s a surprising example of another man stepping on his old woman to find solace on the wings of another bird. But in this case, the two female plovers knew about each other. Early that spring, they each laid three eggs in the same nest. All eggs were fertilized by one male plover and all hatched successfully. This arrangement is similar to kitchen table polyamory, a relationship style where everyone in the proverbial polycule gets along.
The kitchen table poly worked well for the plover. The male plover incubates the egg at night, and A incubates the egg as the sun rises. Mr. B also helped, although irregularly during the day. This trio did a great job as parents together. They attended the nest for about 90% of the day, a higher attendance rate than most monogamous plover couples, which averaged nearly 87%. (By comparison, when this male was monogamous, he and A attended the nest about 82% of the day.)
Later in the same breeding season, for reasons that are unclear to anyone outside Polycule, the three experimented with a new arrangement. They were no longer nesting partners. After the male mated with two partners, the first laid three sterile eggs and the second laid two fertilized eggs, this time in separate nests. This time the man spoke gibberish. He often did not appear at both nests. The cumulative time he spent in both nests was similar to the time a monogamous male spent in one nest. That said, he was a bit of a deadbeat. Despite the male’s difficulties, neither of the two females spent any more time in their nest. The second female’s nest was neglected, especially at night. At the end of the experiment, both nests failed.
It is unclear what the male plover and his mates learned from this experiment in relational anarchy. Researchers speculate that he may have chosen his second mate because his first mate was temporarily absent. In such a situation, it may be admirable that he did his best to protect both of them. And it’s certainly a testament to both females that they tolerated each other well, at least in their early shared nests. But in the animal kingdom, polygamy, which refers to a male mating with multiple females, does not seem to suit the white-faced plover. The birds are too dependent on the care of their adoptive parents and do not deviate from their established hatching rhythm. Researchers suggest that this may be at least part of the reason why the second nest failed.
But from another perspective, we might consider the male plover’s radical experiment a success. How many plovers wake up one morning and dare not just ask questions, but challenge societal norms? It takes courage to go out and defy the odds and expose yourself to the inevitable gossip. Monogamy is complicated even for birds. Birds get divorced all the time. This means that a bird mates with a new partner while its previous partner is still alive. It is true that 90% of birds are socially monogamous, and it is also true that more than 90% of socially monogamous birds experience bird divorce. More than 80% of king penguins divorce between breeding seasons, and two-thirds of plovers divorce after their chicks hatch. Remember that social monogamy is not sexual exclusivity. That is, most monogamous birds are in functionally open relationships. Therefore, the white-faced plover has the right to experiment with ethical non-monogamy. Let them experience the highs and lows that come with sailing bird vigilance, bird praise, bird approval and bird jealousy. Make them buy a copy. Plover Secure Then throw it away on the beach.
