No visitor to Iceland is awaited with as much anticipation as the European golden plover (lóa). Thus, its arrival did not go unnoticed Saturday. Every newspaper and radio station happily announced that the plover had arrived. The news is always welcome because it’s regarded as a sure sign of spring. Three plovers were spotted at Garðskagi, Southwest Iceland, on Saturday morning. A picture of one of them was posted on the Facebook page of Birding Iceland.
The golden plover is the subject of many Icelandic poems, and hundreds of parents have chosen to name their daughters Lóa, often short for Ólafía, regardless of whether they arrived at the first sign of spring.
