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Snowy Plover | Anarhynchus nivosus
Sneeuwplevier | Chorlo nevado
The Snowy Plover is the smallest and palest plover in the region, a bird of bare salt flats and quiet beaches. In the West Indies it breeds in small, scattered populations that are sensitive to disturbance; on St Martin it disappeared as a breeding bird after 2005. For a long time it was treated as a subspecies of the Old World Kentish Plover.
Voice
A soft, slightly hoarse whistled chu-wee and a low, short krut or prrt, among other times on taking flight. Around the nest short peeps and a soft rattling alarm.
Recording: Paul Marvin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15–17 cm. A small, slim plover with a round head, a thin, pointed black bill and dark grey to blackish legs. The upperparts are pale sandy grey, the underparts bright white. Instead of a breast band it has a dark patch on the side of the breast. In breeding plumage these patches, a stripe behind the eye and a bar across the forecrown are black; in females and in winter plumage they are brownish. Juveniles have pale fringes on the back. In flight it shows a white wingbar and white tail sides. It runs fast and far over the sand, with pauses in which it is barely noticeable.
Confusion species
Piping Plover Charadrius melodus is just as pale but more compact, with a short, stubby bill, yellow-orange legs and a white rump. Semipalmated Plover Charadrius semipalmatus is much darker, with a complete breast band and orange legs. Wilson's Plover Anarhynchus wilsonia is larger, with a heavy bill and a complete breast band.
Habitat
Bare salt pans and the dry margins of salt lakes and coastal lagoons, and quiet, wide sandy beaches; locally on mudflats. It forages on open, level ground for small crustaceans, flies, beetles and worms. The nest is a shallow scrape on bare sand or salt crust, often lined with shell fragments; the parents try to lure intruders away with distraction displays.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Breeding has been recorded in the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Dominican Republic, the US and British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, St Martin, St Barthélemy, St Kitts, Bonaire and Curaçao. In Cuba and in Puerto Rico, where the species occurs at the salt flats of Cabo Rojo, numbers are a few dozen birds or fewer. On many of these islands its present status is poorly known. Beyond the region along the Gulf and Pacific coasts of the United States and Mexico, in the Great Basin, and along the coast of Peru and Chile.
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On salt pans and remote sand flats, preferably with a telescope from the edge, since the pale birds only stand out against the white salt when they move. In the breeding season nesting areas are best avoided; a bird that runs off low or drags a wing has a nest or chicks nearby.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. In the Caribbean the populations are small and fragmented. On St Martin the species disappeared after 2005, mainly through human disturbance of breeding birds and possibly predation by introduced animals. Beach recreation, vehicles on beaches, free-roaming dogs and cats and the development of salt pans threaten the remaining breeding sites.
Scientific name
Anarhynchus nivosus | (Cassin, 1858)
Cassin described the species in 1858 as Aegialitis nivosa; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Anarhynchus was introduced in 1832 by Quoy & Gaimard. Anarhynchus is Greek, from ana- 'backward' and rhunkhos 'bill', after the sideways-bent bill of the wrybill, the type species of the genus. nivosus is Latin for 'snowy', after the very pale plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Presidio, San Francisco, California.