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The air was thick and clammy, and mosquitoes were biting along Louisiana’s Mermentau River last Thursday morning, the final day of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. A lone Black-bellied Plover quietly worked the flats amid hundreds of other shorebirds. Black-bellied (Grey) Plover, Pluvialis squatarola, in California CC-BY Alan Vernon Remarkable birds, Black-bellied Plovers, winter refugees [...]

It had to happen eventually! We have all been waiting for the rain to arrive and it seems to be later this Wet Season. The frogs must have been wondering what was going on, but now they are happy. It’s not “rain” here until we get over 10mm in a downpour, which has now officially happened [...]

Semipalmated Plover in Broome….am I mad!? Isn’t that a bird that doesn’t venture “down under”….you are correct….or you were correct! In late 2009 there was huge excitement in Broome when a Plover was observed at the famous Poo Ponds and was initially presumed to be a Ringed Plover, which is extremely rare, but not unheard [...]

It’s a plover, and it lives on the shore. What more do you need to know? Actually, there is a great deal more that could be said about the small Shore Plover. One of only two species in the plover genus Thinornis, the other being Australia’s Hooded Plover, this species is another New Zealand endemic. [...]

Last night I saw my second plover species of the year, a Common Ringed Plover.  The first I saw was its doppelganger, the Semipalmated Plover. Interestingly, until a couple of years ago conventional wisdom held that the north end of Baffin Island was only populated by Common Ringed Plovers, the south Baffin by Semipalmated. Somewhere [...]

The Red-capped Plover Charadrius ruficapillus is a very cute shorebird that is often seen scurrying along the shoreline around Australia. The estimated population is 95 000. They can be found in significant flocks along the coast, but also may be encountered at inland wetlands. The male bird has the “red cap” more than the female [...]

For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by shorebirds. Growing up within an hour of one of the world’s premier shorebird destinations – West Coast National Park in South Africa – helped for sure. For me, there’s a few things that drive this fascination. Firstly, shorebirds present a significant ID challenge. Getting [...]

Things change quickly here.  It’s just the nature of the place.  For a string of islands that run nearly the length of North Carolina from the Virginia border in the north to Cape Lookout in the south, adapting to fluctuations of wind and wave is a way of life, and every species that finds food [...]

On a recent brief visit to Jones Beach where I dipped on a rare-for-the-eastern-United States White-winged Dove I made up for my dip to some degree with both my first-of-the-year Gull-billed Terns and two absolutely adorable young Killdeer, or, as some prefer to call them, Killfawns.  The Killfawns were along the road with their mother [...]

Remember our Evil Avian ID Quiz from last Wednesday? Here is the promised follow-up post and answer. To review … here were the clues: Locally common in spring in the Great Plains. No subspecies. Worldwide population less than 200,000. All birds show a distinct whitish eyebrow that, in combination with the darker crown, give them [...]

Yesterday in New York was hot.  Way too hot.  Fortunately for Daisy and me our friends Kerry and Becky were heading to the beach and offered a ride.  And it wasn’t just any beach either, but the birding Mecca of Nassau County, Jones Beach.  The south wind was strong, the waves were huge, and we [...]

The Killdeer eggs at my coworker Andrea’s sister’s house have hatched! three hours out of the egg Well, three of the four have so far, and a couple of days early too. The heat that reached the nineties today in Saratoga County left the mother panting (birds don’t sweat), but she hung in there, shading [...]

Just like Paula alerting me to the baby robins at her parents’, which have fledged, another coworker, Andrea, alerted me to a Killdeer nest at her sister and brother-in-law’s place in Malta, NY.  She actually called me last night to find out what kind of bird it was and to find out what they should do [...]

When shorebird season arrives, one group you should keep your eyes open for, no matter where on Earth you call home (unless for some inexplicable reason you live in Antarctica) are plovers. Plovers are relatively small shorebirds, compact but gracefully tapered, somewhat reminiscent of teardrops with bird legs. Sixty-six members of the Family Charadriidae are [...]