Medium small. Short bicolored bill. Feet are slightly webbed. Sexes differ.
Adults: Non-breeding: Like a dull female with no black on facial markings. The breast band may be brown and incomplete. Bill, all black. Legs, dull orange.
Male: Breeding: Forehead, white, squarish in shape, sometimes with a narrow black line at base of bill. Eyestripe, from lores to ear, black. Forecrown, black. Eyebrow, short, indistinct, white, behind eye only. Eye, dark brown. Eyering, yellow or orange and obvious. Crown, hind neck, back, rump, uppertail coverts, wing coverts, greyish-brown, greater coverts tipped white forming a wing bar with white shafts of dark brown flight feathers. A narrow collar, white, and bordered behind by black, which continues forming a narrow black breast band. Tail, brown, outmost feathers nearly all white. Throat, breast, belly, undertail coverts, underwing, white. Bill, black with orange at the base of the lower mandible. Legs, orange.
Female: Breeding: Like male but the facial markings and breast band might be brown.
Immatures: Pale fringes to feathers and dark subterminal marks give a scaly appearance. Legs, darker than adult.
Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada (B) (P), Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica (NB), Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Pierre and Miquelon (B) (P), St Vincent and The Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uruguay (NB), USA (B), Venezuela, Virgin Islands (British) (NB), Virgin Islands (U.S.) (NB).
Vagrant to Greenland, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, United States Minor Outlying Islands.
Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) [XC323092]
by Peter Boesman from Barrow, North Slope, Alaska, United States (song)
Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) [XC337209]
by Tim Jones from Rio Itanha\u00e9m, Itanha\u00e9m, S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil (call)
Breeding Season (Guide)
Does not breed in Australia.
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Subspecies
No subspecies.
Similar Species
The dark back seperates it from Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) and Kentish Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) and its much smaller bill from Wilson's Plover (Charadrius wilsonia).
Ringed Plover (Charadrius hiaticula)
Eyebrow is more distinct in males. Eyering is faint yellow or not visible. The white forecrown tapers off towards the eye. Bill is slightly longer, of more even thickness throughout its length, and has a more extensive orange base. Lacks webbing between the (outer two) toes. Has a more plaintive, flut-like 'poo-ee' call.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet