Semipalmated Plover

The Semipalmated Plover is a small shorebird that you can find in coastal areas across America, in low-energy areas that are not surfaced with a water film. As the name suggests, they have semipalmated or partially webbed feet.

About Semipalmated Plovers

Semipalmated Plovers have striking eyes, with the ring of exposed skin creating a bright orange or yellow lining around their shiny, deep brown irises. They have orange and black bills, orange-yellow legs, and striking dark collars, which contribute to their visual allure.

These Plovers are also unique by nature of their lifecycle. Shortly after birth, chicks do not receive help from the adults to feed themselves, and the mother abandons their nest 15 days after the chicks are hatched.

● Semipalmated Plover Photos, Color Pattern, Song
● Semipalmated Plover Size, Eating behavior, Habitat
● Semipalmated Plover Range and Migration, Nesting

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Semipalmated Plover Color Pattern

Semipalmated Plovers have medium to deep brown upper parts with white collars around their necks. Their foreheads are white, forecrowns and sides of their heads black. A narrow white stripe runs through the postocular area. Their wings and tails are dark, with a single white stripe running along the base of the remiges.

The Semipalmated Plover’s bills are black, with a yellow-orange base. Their legs can range from dull yellow to orange, and they have bare skin around the eyes which appears yellow to orange. This skin creates the appearance of a thin eye ring.

Their color pattern remains consistent between the sexes, but female Plovers usually have brown feathers in their crowns, masks, and breast-bands. They also have prominent stripes, which are less bold or absent in their male counterparts. Males can have more intensely orange bills and longer wings.

Their basic and alternate plumages are fairly similar. The main difference lies in the head and breast band, which are a grey-brown hue. The postocular stripes may be more extensive, joining the white of the forehead to form supercilium. When fresh, the fringes on the wings are narrow. Males have a greater amount of black on the sides of their heads and forecrowns.

Juvenile Semipalmated Plovers have similar plumage to the Basic adult plumage but appear whiter. Their bills are almost or fully black. Chicks are tawny-down brown and can be easily camouflaged, with speckled surfaces of black and buffy-grey down feathers on their patterns. Their collars are wider stripes of white.

Description and Identification

Semipalmated Plovers are the most common Plovers in most migratory regions, so you are highly likely to spot one if you tried! These Plovers are small shorebirds, with short and stubby bills and short legs.

However, they can be easily confused with other shorebirds at first glance. A variety of other North and Central American plovers have similar plumage patterns to theirs, save for a few distinguishing factors.

Wilson’s Plovers are visually similar to Semipalmated Plovers, but are considerably larger and have a larger, more robust head, and a longer, thicker bill. Snowy Plovers do not have the continuous breast-band of Semipalmated Plovers and have paler upper parts and black legs. Piping Plovers also have incomplete breast-bands and paler upper parts. Collared Plovers are slightly smaller and have a redder hue on their upperparts, narrower and longer bills, pinkish legs, and dark hindnecks.

A bird that resembles Semipalmated Plovers not just visually but behaviorally is the young Killdeers, especially when they are molting into juvenile plumage. However, one can make the distinction by keeping in mind that young Killdeers have a fuzzy appearance.

Another species extremely close to these Plovers in size and appearance are the Common-ringed Plovers (CRPs). However, they can be distinguished from each other by their postocular stripe (thicker in the CRP), the white patch on the forehead (thicker among the CRP).

Semipalmated Plover Song

The most common songs by Semipalmated Plovers are whistly “tyoo-eep”, “kerwee” and “chu-wheet” sounds, with a notable higher inflection of the second syllable. They emit soft, clear, and vigorous calls, and are not musical birds.

Flight and courtship display songs or calls are hasty, looped renditions of their common call. This includes recurring kee-weep sounds followed by a rough “r-r-r-r-r-r-r”, ending with a slurred, tapering yelp sound.

When anxious, they emit rapid chuttering, “chip-chip” or “chup-chup” calls, with similar higher inflection on the second note.

Semipalmated Plover Size

These Plovers have an average length of 6.7-7.5 inches and an average wingspan of 18.5-19.7 inches. The mean weights of populations can vary within 1.6-1.8 ounces. They are bigger than Sparrows but smaller than Robins.

Eastern Semipalmated Plovers are bigger than western ones. Eastern birds have an average wing length of 122.5 millimeters or 4.82 inches and the populations west of this have smaller dimensions.

Female Semipalmated Plovers are larger and heavier on average. During autumnal migration, they acquire fat reserves and become heavier than they are in the spring. Average masses are lower in the winter than they are during seasons of breeding and migration.

Semipalmated Plover Behavior

Semipalmated Plovers walk or run quickly with their heads up. Their speed ranges from 4-8 meters/minute, and their usual stride can range from 4-10 centimeters. Their stride is longer on hard substrates than on muddy surfaces during foraging. Much like their shorebird relatives, Semipalmated Plovers stand on one foot for the occasional roosting, and can deftly hop on one foot. They can wade in shallow water but rarely forage in water.

As part of courtship and agonistic communication, the birds walk and run. They do not climb vertical objects but hop on low rocks. In anticipation of predators or humans, they leave their nests and return only after the disturbance has retreated. Their long, slender wings enable powerful flight and aid them in flying into forceful winds. Their flight speed has been estimated to be 52 km/hr, or 14.2 m/s. During their Butterfly Flight, they make slow, intentional wing beats and sing from high above their territory. They fly both in compact flocks and loose-knit groups.

During the pre-laying period, males defend their territories by attacking potential disturbances with both short flights and runs. Territorial disputes happen mainly in coastal habitats, or where there is a high density of breeding birds. Male Plovers can also become extremely aggressive towards the feeding chicks of another family.

Semipalmated Plover Diet

Semipalmated Plovers maintain a diet primarily consisting of insects, crustaceans, and worms. Their diet varies based on the season and location humidity, climate, density of feeding population, and availability of feed are the main determinants. During the breeding season and inland migration, birds may feed on insects and their larvae, especially fly. Earthworms, marine worms, crustaceans, and small mollusks are also common to feed depending on their availability.

Semipalmated Plovers forage on beaches, tidal flats, and fields. Their most common approach to foraging is by sight, and they dig or dive into wet mud or water very rarely.

Semipalmated Plover Habitat

Semipalmated Sandpipers choose low-energy, firm-surfaced areas as their habitats. They are unlikely to choose habitats with surface films of water. Mudflats, salt marshes with mussel beds, and low-energy beaches are popular habitats. Manmade fishponds, muddy sections on lakeshores, tidal mudflats, and beach areas are homes to these birds.

Their chosen habitats during migration season are similar to their regular habitats-coastal areas, sandy and muddy beaches, lagoons, lakes, marshes, estuaries, mudflats, and salt ponds. Inland savanna pools are in the South American regions of Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname.

Range and Migration

Semipalmated Plovers only migrate a moderate range between their breeding and non-breeding stations. This learning is suggested by the analysis of trace elements-trace element signatures from the non-breeding regions that match those in the breeding locations. These birds can migrate over a broad front through the continents of North and South America but concentrate at coastal sites. A high number of yearlings remain on wintering grounds throughout their second year.

In the continent of North America, the highest proportion of migrations take place along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. However, these Plovers are also commonly distributed in inland habitats, in fewer numbers. The Maritime Provinces of Eastern Canada, New England, the West Indies, and Bermuda see a larger number of Semipalmated Plovers in the Spring, implying that these birds take a North-Eastern route during the fall but fly back via the westerly route.

Semipalmated Plover Lifecycle

A single clutch usually consists of 4 eggs. Clutches of 2-3 eggs are relatively rare. Smaller clutch sizes prefer colder habitats, such as Churchill, Manitoba. Intervals between egg-laying can last 24-30 hours on average, and the egg-laying process of an entire clutch can take up to 5 days. If the eggs are dented or broken, they are removed from the nest. There are no records of replacement eggs being laid.

The male of the pair incubates the laid eggs while the female is still laying the others. After they complete the clutch, males and females share incubation duties equally, with the female’s shifts slightly shorter than the males. This is because males are more likely to incubate during darker hours, which last longer than the daytime in colder climates.

The period of egg-starring to pipping can last 2 to 5 days. Unhatched chicks peep as early as 3.5 days before they hatch. The adults do not aid the hatching process. The latest laid egg is likely to hatch a day later than their siblings,
and so the male takes the freshly hatched chicks a short distance away from the nest for brooding and feeding while the female continues to incubate the unhatched egg. After the chicks are 3 days old, they must forage for their own food as their parents take up nest protection. They may be led to areas to forage in by the adults. Females abandon their male partners about 15 days after the chicks have hatched, leaving the males to be the sole guardian of the chicks. The chicks are ready to fledge at about 17 days after hatching.

Nesting

Nest formation happens through the process of scraping- where the male presses his breast to the ground and exerts pressure by kicking his legs outwards. Both adults line the nest by flinging lining material into the depression from within 1 meter away. During incubation, the adults continue to line the nest and peck at its sides.

They make a depression in loose sand, gravel, lichen, moss, etc. They line it with whatever material is available in the proximity of the nest site- shell, rock, sand, grass, charcoal, willow fragments, and even debris and glass.

The average diameter of the top surface of nests in Churchill, Manitoba was around 91.1 millimeters or 3.59 inches, with a mean depth of 1.1 inches. The nests are often vertically built and have uniform depth on the inside. These nests are distinctly different from those of Piping Plovers and Killdeers, who build their nests to gradually slope on the inside. Semipalmated Plovers build their nests on flat slopes and not on ridges.

Anatomy of a Semipalmated Plover

Semipalmated Plovers are small shorebirds with legs of moderate length and medium webbing between three of their toes on each foot. Their bills are short and stubby.

Breeding female adults have slightly longer wings than adult males. The males have slightly longer middle toes and culmens than the females. Both sexes gain excess fat reserves during migration and grow in mass accordingly.

Final Thoughts

To conclude, Semipalmated Plovers are an interesting species to study, and there are several areas that must be researched further for us to gain valuable insight. Firstly, their vocalizations and non-vocal communication are documented but can be studied further to examine the motivations and emotions at play behind each call.

These birds act in aggressive ways in some habitats and not others. Studying their behavior more closely will help us understand their motivations in different terrains. Furthermore, the effect of stress physiology is an area of research that remains largely untouched.

Human activity has definitely impacted their quality of life. They are commonly trapped and killed for food in the Guianas and South America. In addition to this, the prolonged and intensive use of pesticides and other water contaminants that are present on the shores that they habituate are bound to manifest in the form of poorer health for the species in the future. Several such toxins have been found in these birds above the detection level in laboratories in Canada.

Ornithology

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