What do piping plovers look like

The eggs are well camouflaged and blend extremely well with their surroundings. Both sexes incubate the eggs which hatch within 30 days, and both sexes feed the young until they can fly, about 30 days after hatching. Plovers depart for the wintering grounds from mid-July through late October.

Breeding and wintering plovers feed on exposed wet sand in wash zones; intertidal ocean beach; wrack lines; washover passes; mud-, sand-, and algal flats; and shorelines of streams, ephemeral ponds, lagoons, and salt marshes by probing for invertebrates at or just below the surface.

They use beaches adjacent to foraging areas for roosting and preening. Small sand dunes, debris, and sparse vegetation within adjacent beaches provides shelter from wind and extreme temperatures. In recent decades, piping plover populations have drastically declined, especially in the Great Lakes. Breeding habitat has been replaced with shoreline development and recreation. Availability of quality foraging and roosting habitat in the wintering grounds is necessary in order to ensure that an adequate number of adults survive to migrate back to breeding sites and successfully nest.

For more information, visit our web sites at: plover. You may also telephone: Division of Endangered Species for the breeding habitat area - ; for the wintering habitat area, telephone The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk will affect other wildlife and people, too. These recent books are sure to delight and inspire the young readers in your life.

Staff with Audubon Great Lakes and Audubon Florida work collectively year-round to keep the plovers safe no matter where they are. Protecting shorebirds in habitats especially vulnerable to development and climate threats. Latin: Charadrius hiaticula. Latin: Charadrius mongolus. Latin: Charadrius semipalmatus. Latin: Charadrius nivosus. Latin: Charadrius wilsonia. Membership benefits include one year of Audubon magazine and the latest on birds and their habitats. Your support helps secure a future for birds at risk.

Our email newsletter shares the latest programs and initiatives. Priority Bird. A small plover with a very short bill. Its pale back matches the white sand beaches and alkali flats that it inhabits. While many shorebirds have wide distributions, this one is a North American specialty, barely extending into Mexico in winter. Many of its nesting areas are subject to human disturbance or other threats, and it is now considered an endangered or threatened species in all parts of its range.

Photo gallery. Feeding Behavior Typically they run a few steps and then pause, then run again, pecking at the ground whenever they spot something edible. Eggs 4, sometimes , rarely 5. Young Downy young may leave nest a few hours after hatching. Diet Includes insects, marine worms, crustaceans. Nesting Males perform display flights over breeding territory, with slow wingbeats and piping callnote. Climate threats facing the Piping Plover Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases.

However it is much darker. The back is a rich, dark chocolate brown and the eye is entirely enclosed in a black mask. Semipalmated Plover. Sanderlings can be light-colored like Piping Plovers, but they move quite differently, running up and down the beach with the waves and pecking constantly in the sand. Piping Plovers have a run-stop-run-stop pattern to their movements while feeding.

Sanderlings also have smaller heads and longer, thinner bills. Adults have varying amounts of rust-color and juveniles have a black and white checkered look to their backs.

Sanderling - Juvenile. Sanderling - Breeding Adult. Other small shorebirds that migrate through the Great Lakes regularly are seldom mistaken for Piping Plovers. Here are pictures of a few of them.