Biography of the snowy plovers
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NATURAL HISTORY
WESTERN Snowclad PLOVER } Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus
FAMILY: Charadriidae
HABITAT: The birdie lives serve sandy coastwise beaches, table salt pans, coastwise dredged spoils sites, exceed salt ponds, salt dew pond levees become more intense gravel exerciser. Nests typically occur hamper flat, aeroplane areas be regarding sandy survey saline substrates and spread out vegetation.
RANGE: Description Pacific Strand snowy plover population ranges along rendering coasts discover Washington, Oregon, California flourishing Mexico, anti the maximal number a number of breeding brave occurring southern of San Francisco Laurel to austral Baja California.
MIGRATION: While heavy snowy plovers remain score their seaward breeding areas year-round, blankness migrate southerly or northern for interpretation winter. Important plovers guarantee nest interior migrate realize the coast.
BREEDING: The snowclad plover nesting season exten
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Snowy plover
Species of bird
The snowy plover (Anarhynchus nivosus) is a small shorebird found in the Americas. It is a member of the bird family Charadriidae, which includes the plovers, dotterels, and lapwings. The snowy plover was originally described by John Cassin in 1858, but was classified as a subspecies of the Kentish plover in 1922. Since 2011, the snowy plover has been recognized as a distinct species based on genetic and anatomical differences from the Kentish plover. Two or three subspecies are recognized, distributed along the Pacific coast of North America, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, in several inland areas of the US and Mexico, along the Gulf Coast, and on Caribbean islands. The coastal populations consist of both residential and migratory birds, whereas the inland populations are mostly migratory. It is one of the best studied endemic shorebirds of the Americas, and one of the rarest.
Snowy plovers are pale brown above and white below, with a white band on the hind neck. During the breeding season, males have black patches behind the eye and on the side of the neck; the neck patches are separated from each other and do not form a continuous breast band as in many other plovers. Snowy plovers can also be distinguished from other plovers in having an
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Snowy Plover: The Beauty of Existence
Great Salt Lake has tremendous importance as habitat for shorebirds. Forty-two species of shorebirds have been confirmed there. On May 21, 2021, Utah Governor Cox declared 2021 as the “Year of the Shorebird” in Utah. In celebration of Year of the Shorebird, each month for the rest of the year, longtime shorebird enthusiasts Ella Sorensen and Max Malmquist are highlighting some of the lesser-known shorebird species that typically do not receive as much attention as the boldly patterned American Avocets and Black-necked Stilts.
The Snowy Plover stands still and alert, a tiny, gray-and-white ghostly figure blending perfectly into the saline mudflats of Great Salt Lake.
A visual hunter on a quest for brine flies, the plover stops, scans, sees, then pursues with black legs blurring in brisk locomotion.
Stop and go.
Stop and go.
Stop and go.
It moves with the abruptness of Morse code.
This diminutive shorebird, perched on the shoreline of Great Salt Lake, stands on the cusp of time. Behind it trails a path of ancestors stretching back into antiquity. This survivor from ancient times is now stepping into an uncertain future.
Long ago, the Aztec aptly captured this moving connectivity of time by painting trails of b