By Peter Roos
SNOWY AND WILSON’S PLOVERS
Since Hurricanes Helene and Milton visited, the beaches have been almost devoid of tourists and other shell collectors. Meanwhile, the Gulf of Mexico has been sending its shelling treasures eastward with abandon. A short walk on the beach at low tide in Pass-s-Grille recently yielded 10 different kinds of shells in perfect condition. The Snowy and Wilson’s Plovers were there too, doing what they do best.
Ornithologist George Ord named Wilson’s Plover for his friend, Alexander Wilson, often called “the father of American ornithology.” Wilson collected the type specimen in May 1813 at Cape May, N.J., where this species is only a rare visitor. The Wilson’s Plover is a heavy-billed shorebird of sandy beaches in the southern United States and in coastal South America. Wilson’s Plover eats insects, crustaceans, and other marine invertebrates, which they glean or pull from mud or sand using the bill. They forage during the day and at night, usually on a falling tide, which exposes their favored prey, fiddler crabs. They run and lunge to catch a crab, then shake it to remove the legs before swallowing it. In some places, fiddler crabs make up 99% of this species’ diet. Like other plovers in this environment, they also eat marine worms, sand flies, dragonflies, shrimp, and tiny mollusks.
They blend in well with their shell-strewn beach habitat, and their plaintive call is often the first clue to their presence. These sandy brown birds look like a small Killdeer or a larger, bigger-billed Semipalmated Plover, with a single, broad breast band. Wilson’s Plovers are vulnerable to beach disturbance and development and are on the Yellow Watch List for species with restricted ranges.
Wilson’s Plovers seldom wander far from ocean coastlines. They’re rarely very numerous, and they can stay high on the beach where they blend in with the dunes. They’re most visible when they forage along salt flats or mudflats during lower tides, when a careful scan may turn them up. As with many shorebirds, it’s helpful to have a spotting scope or join a bird walk where the leader will bring one along to help view the birds at distance.