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American Golden Plover

American Golden Plover

Pluvialis dominica

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The American Golden Plover is a slim, medium-sized plover that breeds on the Arctic tundra of Alaska and northern Canada and winters in southern South America. In breeding plumage it has a black face and underparts bordered by a white neck stripe and a gold-flecked back; in winter it is grey-brown. It makes one of the longest migrations of any wader, following an elliptical route. It is a rare vagrant to Europe.

Did you know?

  • Its genus name Pluvialis comes from the Latin for “rain”.
  • It migrates over 40,000 km a year, including a non-stop leg of about 3,900 km over the ocean.

About the species

Identification

A medium-sized, slim plover whose wingtips project well beyond the tail at rest. It resembles European Golden Plover but is slimmer and longer-winged; in flight the axillaries are grey (white in European Golden Plover). In breeding plumage the face, throat, breast and belly are black, including the undertail. Overall colouring is less golden than in European Golden Plover, and the supercilium is bolder in winter; identification often requires several features.

Family

Charadriidae

Size

Medium (thrush)

Colours

black, white, yellow, brown

About the habitat

Breeds on dry, open Arctic tundra; on migration and in winter short-grass fields, pastures, mudflats and beaches.

Diet

Insects and larvae, earthworms, snails, crustaceans, berries and seeds, found by sight on tundra, fields, beaches and mudflats.

Behaviour

Forages by quick runs and pauses on open ground. It nests in a simple ground scrape lined with lichens and leaves and defends its territory aggressively. The four heavily blotched eggs are incubated by the male by day and the female by night; the chicks leave the nest within hours. Its migration includes a non-stop flight over the western Atlantic.

Sources

Photo: Peter Wilton, CC BY 2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American Golden Plover (7458262530).jpg

Text: Wikipedia (English) + GBIF regional observations + Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0; GBIF occurrence data; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_golden_plover

See also