Mountain Plover

Overview

Mountain Plover: Medium-sized plover with pale brown upperparts, white underparts, and brown sides. Head has brown cap, white face, and dark eyestripe. The upperwings are brown with black edges and white bars; underwings are white. Tail is brown-black with white edges. Legs and feet are pale gray.

Range and Habitat

Mountain Plover: Breeds in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas Panhandle east to Nebraska. Spends winters from central California and southern Arizona southward into Mexico. One of the few shorebirds that lives in dry regions away from water, preferring shortgrass prairie and dry lowland areas; often found on grassy or bare dirt fields.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Mountain Plover is misnamed, as it lives on level land. Unlike most plovers, it is usually not found near bodies of water or even on wet soil.
It often associates with livestock, which attract and stir up insects.
It was formerly classified as Vulnerable species by the IUCN. But new research has shown it to be not as rare as it was believed.
A group of plovers has many collective nouns, including a "brace", "congregation", "deceit", "ponderance" and "wing" of plovers.

The Mountain Plover has a large breeding range, including parts of Canada and the United States. Native to the nations of North America, this bird prefers grassland and shrubland ecosystems, though it has been known to reside on arable land. The global population of this bird is estimated at 11,000 to 14,000 individuals and shows significant signs of decline that necessitate inclusion on the IUCN Red List. For this reason, the current evaluation status of the Mountain Plover is Least Concern.