Newly Poly Plover Dad Still Figuring Out His Time Management

The animal kingdom is ruled by open sexual relationships. Bats, beetles, and bonobos all have multiple partners over a season or a lifetime. Barnacles and barracudas don't even get to pick their partners, simply spewing their eggs and sperm into milky clouds underwater. But it's much rarer to be a nonmonogamous bird. An estimated 90 percent of birds are socially monogamous, meaning they choose partners with whom they cohabitate and raise young, albeit usually**** without the bounds of sexual exclusivity. For many birds, monogamy just makes sense. Their tiny, naked chicks are essentially helpless, and the round-the-clock care they require is an easier job for two. The expectations for each bird parent are clear, and as such caregiving often follows a set script for each species.

The small and skittish white-faced plover is one such monogamous bird. Pairs of white-faced plovers switch off the incubation of their nests. The females sit on the nest by day, and the males take over at night. Around noon, when temperatures are hot, both parents will pitch in to cool the eggs. This simple routine clearly works, and has for thousands of years for the many white-faced plovers scuttling around the shores of eastern Asia. All of them, it seems, except for this guy.

Well, not this guy specifically , but a guy who looks like him.