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Black-bellied Plover | Pluvialis squatarola
Zilverplevier | Chorlito gris
The Black-bellied Plover is the largest plover in the guide area, a heavy grey shorebird with a short, thick bill and large dark eyes. It breeds on the Arctic tundra and is a common winter visitor and passage migrant along both coasts of Mexico and Central America on mudflats, beaches and salt pans. It usually stands alone or in small, loose groups spread out over the mud.
Voice
A plaintive, three-note whistle that dips in the middle and rises again, like tlee-oo-ee, carrying far over the mud and often given on take-off.
Recording: MERCIER Christophe — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
27–30 cm. In non-breeding plumage grey with fine pale and dark spotting on the upperparts, a faintly streaked grey breast and a white belly; the head shows a pale supercilium of low contrast. Juveniles are more evenly spotted, with a pale yellow wash on back and wing. In spring birds about to head north acquire the black face, breast and belly of breeding plumage, with a white border along head and neck and a silver-grey chequered back. In flight distinctive: a white wing bar, a white rump and above all the black axillaries under the wing, visible in every plumage.
Confusion species
American Golden-Plover Pluvialis dominica is smaller and slimmer, with a smaller head and bill, browner or golden-tinged upperparts and a more prominent pale supercilium; in flight it lacks the black axillaries and the white rump. Red Knot Calidris canutus is similarly grey, but has a longer, straight bill and shorter legs and feeds in dense flocks with an even pecking action. Wilson's Plover Anarhynchus wilsonia is much smaller and brown, with a single breast band.
Habitat
Tidal flats, mudbanks, shallow lagoons, salt pans and sandy beaches, also shrimp farms and the edges of mangroves; on migration sometimes on lake shores inland. It feeds in typical plover fashion: a few steps, a pause to look around, then a peck at worms, crustaceans and small molluscs. At high tide birds gather on higher sandbars, embankments or dry salt pans.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Along the whole Pacific coast from Baja California and the Gulf of California to Panama, and along the Atlantic coast from Tamaulipas through Veracruz and the Yucatán Peninsula to Belize, Honduras and the Caribbean coast of Panama. Most numerous on the large mudflats of the Pacific side, such as the lagoons of Sinaloa and Nayarit, the Gulf of Fonseca and the Bay of Panama. Beyond the guide area it breeds around the Arctic, in Alaska, Arctic Canada and northern Russia, and winters along coasts over almost the entire world.
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Mudflats at low tide, such as the Bay of Panama near Panama City, the lagoons of Marismas Nacionales in Nayarit and the salt pans of Celestún and Ría Lagartos in Yucatán. Flocks are easiest to count at high-tide roosts. At a distance the silhouette helps: large, upright and heavily built, with a short, stout bill.
Conservation status
Vulnerable globally. The world population is declining, mainly through loss and disturbance of tidal flats along the flyways. In the guide area mudflats and salt marsh are lost to shrimp farms, ports and coastal development, among other places around the Bay of Panama.
Scientific name
Pluvialis squatarola | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Tringa Squatarola; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pluvialis was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Pluvialis is Latin for 'relating to rain', from pluvia 'rain', from the old belief that these plovers flocked when rain was imminent. squatarola is a Latinised form of sgatarola, a Venetian name for some kind of plover. The specimen the first description was based on came from Sweden.