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Piping Plover
(Courtesy NEBRASKAland Magazine/NGPC) |
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If you're lucky enough to be near a Piping Plover, you might hear it before you see it. People sometimes detect its "piping" (like short, clear bursts on a whistle) before they spot the bird itself.
Range
Three separate populations of Piping Plovers (Charadrius melodus) are found in the US and Canada:
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- The Northern Great Plains population, which breeds along prairie rivers (like the Platte, upper Missouri, and Loup rivers in Nebraska)
- The Great Lakes population, which uses sandy shores along the Great Lakes
- The Atlantic coast population, which uses ocean beaches, sand spits (a formation of sand and pebbles stretching out in a line from a beach), and dredge spoil piles (piles of soil, shell and rock left over from dredging or dumping operations)
Killdeer
(Courtesy NEBRASKAland Magazine/NGPC) |
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Description
This small, stocky shorebird measures six and a half to seven and a half inches in length and resembles a Killdeer, but it’s smaller.
The Piping Plover is sand colored, with one black breast band. (The Killdeer has two black breast bands.)
Habitat
The interior Least Tern and Piping Plover use similar habitat and have similar breeding distributions, so usually you find them nesting in the same areas.
In Nebraska, Piping Plovers nest on barren river sandbars in midstream; or on unvegetated sand spoil piles at sand and gravel mines; or on the wide, sandy beaches of Lake McConaughy (usually in years when lake levels are low).
Piping Plovers spend their winters on beaches, mudflats and sandflats along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts.
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