There's a plover at cover: Cricketers forced to play around territorial bird

Cricketers from two Tasmanian first-grade cricket competitions have been forced to play matches around a bird that chose to nest in the outfield.

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A plover with a brazen disregard for Cricket Tasmania's 2026-27 season schedule is sitting on eggs on the northern end of the Windsor Park cricket ground in Riverside.

The Windsor Park plover known as Faf Swoop Plessis, and Greater Northern Raiders young gun Caleb Brewer. Pictures by Phillip Biggs, Craig George

Plovers are notorious for swooping when caring for eggs or their young, but are a protected species in Tasmania.

Interfering with them can attract fines of up to $21,300.

Groundsmen and players have consequently been forced to mow and field around Riverside's resident raptor, whom some are calling Faf Swoop Plessis.

In the Greater Northern Raiders' season-opener on October 3, Caleb Brewer prepared himself for an unusually nerve-wracking afternoon when he was sent to field near the nest at long-off.

"We came to the ground on Saturday and we found a plover nesting on the ground with couple of eggs underneath it and thought 'what's going on here'," he said.

"At the start it was pretty weird, but towards the middle we kind of got used to it and the plover wasn't too bad at the end.

"It wasn't horrible, they didn't actually swoop that bad."

Masked lapwings, known as plovers, are a protected species. Picture by Phillip Biggs

The match proved to be an unusually bird-themed affair, with the Raiders easily accounting for a Northern Magpies side whose XI included a Crane and two players that scored ducks.

The plover carried its growing trust of cricketers into the following weekend, which brought the opening of the Cricket North season.

This time it was Riverside first-grade opener Josh Partridge who was tasked with befriending the bird.

He was initially miffed by vice-captain Kaidyn Apted's direction to field near the squawking swoop pigeon at 'deep extra plover', but was pleasantly surprised by what he described as a "mutual understanding" with the bird.

Groundsmen have been forced to mow around the plover nest, leaving an elevated tuft of grass at long-off. Picture by Phillip Biggs

"It was like the plover knew there was a game of cricket going on," Partridge said.

"We weren't interfering with what was going on its its life, so it didn't want to interfere with what was going on in ours."

The plover is expected to make its next cricketing appearance on Saturday, in a second-grade match also featuring Riverside and Westbury.

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