Pluvier semipalmé

Identification

This species weighs 22–63 g (0.78–2.22 oz) and measures 14–20 cm (5.5–7.9 in) in length and 35–56 cm (14–22 in) across the wings. Adults have a grey-brown back and wings, a white belly, and a white breast with one black neckband. They have a brown cap, a white forehead, a black mask around the eyes and a short orange and black bill.

Taxonomie

Nom scientifique

Charadrius semipalmatus

Autorité

Bonaparte, 1825

Ordre

Charadriiformes

Famille

Charadriidés

Genre

Charadrius

Répartition et habitat

Their breeding habitat is open ground on beaches or flats across northern Canada and Alaska. They nest on the ground in an open area with little or no plant growth.<p>They are migratory and winter in coastal areas of the southern United States, the Caribbean and much of South America. They are extremely rare vagrants to western Europe, and have been found in Tierra del Fuego and the Isles of Scilly. Their true status may be obscured by the difficulty in identifying them from the very similar ringed plover of Eurasia, of which it was formerly considered a subspecies.

Aire de reproduction

NA : inland high Arctic to extreme ne Russia and subarctic Alaska and Canada: e Chukotskiy Pen. (ne Russia), c, e Aleutian Is., all Alaskan mainland and nw British Columbia to Banks and Baffin is., s to w James Bay, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (nw to ne, se Canada)

Aire hors reproduction

coastal from Oregon and New Jersey (nw, ec USA) s to n Chile and ec Argentina; also Bermuda, throughout West Indies and Galápagos

Migration

Complete migrants

Comportement

Semipalmated plovers forage for food on beaches, tidal flats and fields, usually by sight. They eat insects (such as the larvae of long-legged and beach flies, larvae of soldier flies and shore flies, mosquitoes, grasshoppers and Ochtebius beetles), spiders, crustaceans (such as isopods, decapods and copepods) and worms (such as polychaetes). They also consume small molluscs including bivalves and gastropods, including snails such as coffee bean snails and Odostomia laevigata. These opportunistic feeders also feed on berries or seeds from grasslands or cultivated fields. This bird resembles the killdeer but is much smaller and has only one band. Since the semipalmated plover nests on the ground, it uses a "broken-wing" display to lure intruders away from the nest, in a display similar to the related killdeer.

Conservation

Tendance de la population

stable