The Status and Occurrence of Snowy Plover (Anarhynchus nivosus) in British Columbia. By Rick Toochin and Don Cecile. Revised: May 25, 2024.

 

The Snowy Plover (Anarhynchus nivosus) is a small graceful shorebird that is a threatened or endangered Species throughout all of its North American range (Page et al. 2009). The Snowy Plover is a ground nesting bird found primarily on unvegetated to sparsely vegetated coastal beaches and shores of inland alkaline lakes (Page et al. 2009). An estimated 18,000 Snowy Plovers breed in North America, where the United States Pacific and Gulf coasts populations are imperiled by degradation of their habitat from development, human recreation and invasive species (Page et al. 2009). The Pacific coast population is listed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as threatened, and the Gulf coast population is state-listed as endangered in Mississippi and threatened in Florida (Page et al. 2009). There are two recognized subspecies of the Snowy Plover in North America. The first subspecies of Snowy Plover, which is also the nominate, is the widespread subspecies (C. n. nivosus) and is found throughout western North America east to Louisiana (O’Brien et al. 2006). The second subspecies (C. n. tenuirostris) occurs in the Caribbean and along the Gulf Coast east of Louisiana (O’Brien et al. 2006).

 

The range of the Snowy Plover is patchy with populations scattered throughout the United States. Along the Pacific Coast the Snowy Plover breeds from southern Washington (Paulson 1993) to Magdalena Bay, Baja Sur, Mexico; the Gulf of California at mouth of the Rio Colorado, at Cienga de Santa Clara, (Mellink et al. 1996) and on islands of Angel de La Guarda and (probably) Punta Arena la Ventana (AOU 1983, Palacios et al. 1994); locally along the west coast of Mexico from Sonora to Oaxaca (Binford 1989, Mellink and Palacios 1993, Palacios and Mellink 1995, Mellink and Riojas-Lopez 2005); and on the coast of South America from southwestern Ecuador to Chiloe Island, Chile (Blake 1977, AOU 1983, Castro and Myers 1988).

 

There is an inland population of Snowy Plover found throughout western North America into Mexico. This is a localized breeding species found in south-central Oregon at Harney, Lake, and Klamath counties (Gilligan et al. 1994), San Joaquin Valley, Salton Sea and eastern California (Page and Stenzel 1981, Shuford et al. 2008), western and central Nevada (Herman et al. 1988), northwestern Utah (Paton and Edwards 1990), and southern Arizona (Monson and Phillips 1981). Snowy Plovers have been found irregularly in southern Saskatchewan (Gollop 1987). It is irregular in southwestern Wyoming (Kingery 1990), southwestern Montana (Eng 1981), central and eastern Colorado (Andrews and Righter 1992), southern New Mexico (Page et al. 1991), central and southwestern Kansas (Thompson and Ely 1989), western Oklahoma (Baumgartner and Baumgartner 1992), lakes in the south and playa lakes region of Texas (Gorman and Haig 2002), and in central Mexico in the states of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Jalisco, and Mexico (Howell and Webb 2010).

 

The Snowy Plovers found along the Gulf Coast are discontinuously distributed along the southwest coast of Florida from Marco Island north to Anclote Key and along the coast of the Florida Panhandle where most Florida breeders now occur; in Alabama and Mississippi mainly on offshore islands; along the lower Texas coast from Matagorda Island to the Mexican border; and south to northeastern Veracruz and the north coast of Yucatán Peninsula (Gorman and Haig 2002, Himes et al. 2006, Howell and Webb 2010,).

 

The Snowy Plovers found along the Atlantic Coast breed on islands throughout the Caribbean and Bahamas, but documented sites are few. They are common year-round residents south of San Salvador Island to the Turks and Caicos Islands, and an uncommon resident north of San Salvador. In the Caribbean, breeding is documented in Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (Raffaele 1989, Gorman and Haig 2002); and on islands off the north coast of Venezuela from Curaçao east to Margarita (AOU 1983, Voous 1983), but few specific locations have been officially noted. 

 

The winter range of the Snowy Plover incorporates much of the breeding range, but birds do retreat from the northern breeding areas and head south for the winter. Along the Pacific Coast, the Snowy Plover is local in the winter from southern Washington (Widrig 1980, Pearson et al. 2008) to Nayarit, Mexico, including both coasts of Baja California (Page et al. 1986, Howell and Webb 2010), at least rarely from Guatemala to Panama where it may be somewhat overlooked (Castro and Myers 1988, Ridgeley and Gwynne 1989, Howell and Webb 2010), and from southwestern Ecuador to Chiloe Island, Chile (Blake 1977, Castro and Myers 1988).

 

The Snowy Plover winters at inland areas and is regular at Salton Sea, Tulare Lake Basin in Kings and Tulare counties, and interior lakes in southern California; rare and irregular in southern Arizona, southern New Mexico (Shuford et al. 1995); in northwestern and central Texas (Elliott-Smith et al. 2004); and is also reported in interior Mexico south to the central volcanic belt (Howell and Webb 2010).

 

The Snowy Plover winters along the Gulf Coast of the United States and Mexico to the Yucatán Peninsula with records of birds at many sites on the coast of Tamaulipas (Mabee et al. 2001, Elliott-Smith et al. 2004, Howell and Webb 2010,).

 

Along the Atlantic coast, the Snowy Plover is irregular in western Florida in the winter (Stevenson and Anderson 1994); in the Bahamas it is uncommon in the north, but common in the south of San Salvador (Gorman and Haig 2002); on Caribbean Islands they are characterized as common in the Dominican Republic and Anguilla, and uncommon in the United States and British Virgin Islands, St. Martin, and St. Barthélemy (Raffaele et al. 1998, Elliott-Smith et al. 2004); and on islands off the northern coast of Venezuela, they have been sighted on Tobaga, Isla de Margarita, Islas los Roues, Bonaire, Curaçao, and Aruba (Elliott-Smith et al. 2004).

 

The Snowy Plover has turned up across Canada as a vagrant with scattered records from most Provinces.  In British Columbia, the Snowy Plover is a casual vagrant mostly in the Spring with 40 provincial records. There is one record on May 27, 1998, at Judas Creek, Yukon (Eckert and Sinclair 1998). 

 

Recently, in 2011, the American Ornithologists Union split the Snowy Plover from the Kentish Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) which is found throughout Eurasia (Chesser et al. 2011). There are no known records of Kentish Plover for North America (Chesser et al. 2011). There is a record of either a Snowy or a Kentish Plover with marginal photographs from May 23-24, 1991, at Nome River mouth, in Alaska which unfortunately is not definitive to species (Gibson and Kessel 1992).

 

The identification of the Snowy Plover is covered in all standard North American field guides. The Snowy Plover is a small species measuring 16 cm in length, with a wingspan of 43 cm and weighing 40 grams (Sibley 2000). The larger by comparison Semipalmated Plover measures 18 cm, has a wingspan of 48 cm, and weighs 45 grams (Sibley 2000). The Snowy Plover is a very obvious species and should not pose any identification issues for observers in British Columbia.

 

Adults hold their breeding plumage from February to August (Sibley 2000). Adult males are very pale gray above with a thin dark black bill, and a thin black line that runs from the base of the bill to the dark eyes (Message and Taylor 2005). The legs are long and dark gray (Paulson 1993). The head has a black bar across the forehead with a dark ear patch and broken dark lateral patch on the sides of the breast (Hayman et al. 1986). The underside of the bird is all white (Dunn and Alderfer 2011). Adult females are brownish-gray above with reduced black markings, and otherwise look the same as the adult male (Dunn and Alderfer 2011). In flight, the upperwing has black primaries and secondaries with a bold white wing stripe (Message and Taylor 2005). The underside of the wing is white with bold white axillaries and a dark secondary edge and dark primaries (Message and Taylor 2005).

 

Adults hold their winter plumage from September to February (Sibley 2000). Birds in this plumage are very drab and non-descript (Hayman et al. 1986). The black markings are not present and are replaced with brownish-gray markings instead (Paulson 2005).

 

Juvenile plumage is held from July to October (Sibley 2000). These birds are very drab and scaly due to the pale edges on the crown and wing feathers (Hayman et al. 1986). They lack the black markings of adult birds (Hayman et al. 1986).

The Snowy Plover’s flight call is a nasal and husky “koorWIJ” (Sibley 2000). It also gives a hard “quip” or rough “quirt” (Sibley 2000). The display song given from the ground is a repeated whistled “tuEEoo” (Sibley 2000).

 

The Snowy Plover is a casual vagrant to British Columbia with forty-three provincial records. The records appear to show a great tendency for this species to turn up in British Columbia as a Spring overshoot along the west coast (Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1 and 2). In Washington State, birds arrive to breed in mid-March with the bulk of the birds arriving in mid-April (Paulson 1993, Wahl et al. 2005). Records for British Columbia of Snowy Plover in April are birds that overshot the breeding grounds (Paulson 1993, Wahl et al. 2005). This explains most of the records for May as well (Paulson 1993, Wahl et al. 2005). The few records for birds found in June and July could be failed breeders that wandered northward looking for available habitat (Paulson 1993, Wahl et al. 2005). There are seven records for the month of April with the peak of highest number of records occurring from May with seventeen records, and then dropping in June with nine records and two records in July (Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1 and 2). There are two records in late August and seven records in the month of September (Table 1). There is a single record for the month of December (Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1 and 2). Vancouver Island has the most provincial records with twenty-seven (Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1). The Lower Mainland around the Vancouver area has ten records (Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1). There is two records from Sandspit on the Haida Gwaii (Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1). There are interior populations of the Snowy Plover in western North America, which likely explains why there are now there are three interior records for the province (Table 1). Future interior records for the province are highly likely especially since the interior of Washington State has had a couple of records (Wahl et al. 2005). There have been no confirmed breeding records for British Columbia; however, there is one record of one to three adult birds found and photographed in good breeding habitat at Chesterman’s Beach, south of Tofino from June 7, 13 & 15, 1986 (Campbell et al. 1990b, Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1). Breeding was never confirmed on this intriguing record (Campbell et al. 1990b). The lack of fall record numbers shows that to date there is likely no successful breeding records for British Columbia and that birds found are spring overshoot migrants. Though an increase in the number of recent records from the Pacific Rim National Park area of Vancouver Island could very well lead to a confirmed breeding record in the near future. Observers should watch for this species along open sandy beaches on the coast or on dry lake beds in the interior where shorebirds congregate, as it is highly likely that there will be future records of this species in British Columbia. 

1.(1) adult April 29 - May 6, 1972: Brad Boyle, Lee Kelsey, mobs: Comber’s Resort (Crowell and Nehls 1972c, Poynter 1972, Campbell et al. 1990b)  

2.(1) adult May 28, 1972: Ron Schaefer: Denman Island (Crowell and Nehls 1972c, Campbell et al. 1990b)  

3.(1) adult June 6, 1972: Adrian Dorst: Green Point, Pacific Rim National Park (Toochin et al. 2014)  

4.(1) immature July 17, 1973: Peter Ward: Chesterman’s Beach (Ward 1973, Campbell et al. 1990b)

5.(1) adult male June 14, 1976: Bruce A. MacDonald, Jude Grass, mobs : Iona Island Sewage Ponds, Richmond (Crowell and Nehls 1976d, Toochin et al. 2014)

6.(1) adult July 12, 1980: Mike Shepard, George Sirk (RBCM Photo 724) Sandspit, Haida Gwaii (Harrington-Tweit et al. 1980, Campbell et al. 1990b)

7.(1) adult June 2-5, 1981: (RBCM Photo 697) Chesterman’s Beach, south of Tofino (Campbell et al. 1990b)

8.(1) adult female May 26-31, 1985: Glen Thompson, mobs (RBCM Photo 1055) Iona Island Sewage Ponds, Richmond (Mattocks 1985, Campbell et al. 1990b)

9.(1-3) adults June 7, 13 & 15, 1986: (RBCM Photo 1092) Chesterman’s Beach, south of Tofino (Campbell et al. 1990b)

10.(1) adult May 13, 1989: Edward L. Nygren (RBCM Photo 1240) Little Qualicum River Estuary (Nygren 1990, Campbell et al. 1990b)

11.(1) adult May 8, 1991: Gavin Johnston, Ken Wright: Nel’s Bight, Cape Scott Provincial Park (Siddle 1991c)

12.(1) adult female  June 15, 1991: Robin Owen, mobs:  foot of 112th St., Boundary Bay, Delta (Dorsey 1996a, Toochin et al. 2014)

13.(1) adult April 9, 1994: Don Cecile: Rathtrevor Beach, Parksville (Bain 1994c, Toochin et al. 2014)

14.(1) adult male May 6, 1996: Mitch Meredith, mobs: Chesterman’s Beach, south of Tofino (Bain and Holder 1996c, Toochin et al. 2014)

15.(1) adult male  June 15-18, 1996: Al Russell, Tammy Proctor, mobs (photo)  Roberts Bank Coal Port Jetty, Delta (Bowling 1996d, Davidson 1999, Plath 2000)

16.(1) adult April 29, 1997: Adrian Dorst: Incinerator Rock, PRNP (e-bird Canada database: Accessed February 17, 2013)

     (1) adult May 6, 1997: Adrian Dorst: Comber’s Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (e-bird Canada database: Accessed February 17, 2013)

17.(1) adult male  April 29-30, 2003: John Ireland, mobs (photo) Roberts Bank Coal Port Jetty, Delta (Cecile 2003b, Toochin et al. 2014)

18.(1) adult May 24, 2010: Steve Baille:  Long Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (Charlesworth 2010b)

19.(1) adult [with colour leg bands] December 18, 2014: Robin Kite: south end of Long Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (BC Bird Alert Blog: Accessed December 27, 2014)

20.(1) adult June 18, 2016: Ian Cruickshank, mobs (photo) Florencia Bay, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

21.(1) adult male April 25, 2017: Peter Hamel, Margo Hearne: Little Spit, Sandspit, Haida Gwaii (P. Hamel Pers. Comm.)

22.(1) adult male May 21, 2018: Cole Gaerber (photo) foot of 96th St., Boundary Bay (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

23.(1) fall adult August 23-September 4, 2018: Don Manson, mobs (photo) Revelstoke (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

24.(1) adult September 1, 2018: Randy Dzenkiw, mobs (photo) foot of 96th St., Boundary Bay (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

25.(1) adult April 23, 2019: Sara Tyne, mobs (photo) Wickaninnish Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

26.(1) juvenile September 12, 2019: Ian Cruickshank (photo) Schooner Cove Beach, Tofino (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

27.(1) adult May 26, 2020: Ian Cruickshank and Adrian Dorst (photo) Long Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

28.(1) immature September 8-10, 2020: Kyle Fitzpatrick, Morgan Armstrong, mobs (photo) end of Engles Road, Campbell River (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

29.(1) immature September 17, 2020: Margaret Munro (photo) Wickaninnish Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

30.(1) adult May 1, 2021: Simon Valdez-Juarez (photo) base of North Arm Jetty (D. Baker Pers. Comm.)

31.(1) adult May 7-10, 2021: Yuri Zharikov, mobs (photo) Comber’s Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

32.(1) adult male June 15-17, 2021: Ryan Tomlinson, mobs (photo) mouth of Mission Creek, Kelowna (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

33.(1) winter plumage September 27, 2021: Ian Cruickshank (photo) Sandhill Creek mouth, Comber’s Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

34.(1) adult April 29, 2022: David Caudwell (photo) Chesterman Beach, outside Tofino (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

      (1) adult April 30, 2022: Bob Hansen: Chesterman Beach near Frank Island, outside Tofino (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

35.(1) adult April 30, 2022: Michelle Hamilton: Comber’s Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

36.(1-3) adults May 1-15, 2022: Ian Cruickshank, mobs (photo) on Comber’s Beach, near the Sandhill Creek mouth (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

37.(1) adult May 13-14, 2022: Craig Huish, mobs (photo) South Jetty, Iona Island Regional Park, Richmond (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

38.(1) adult May 20, 2022: Jim Sims, Lubna Khan, Sean and Betty Donahue (photo) Chilanko Marsh, near Tatla Lake (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

39.(1) adult May 17, 2023: Sarah Tyne (photo) Comber’s Beach on the southeast side of the Sandhill Creek mouth, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

40.(1) adult June 4, 2023: Melissa Hafting and Ilya Povalyaev, mobs (photo) at the foot of 96th Street at Boundary Bay, Delta (D. Baker Pers. Comm.)
41.(1) immature August 20, 2023: Ian Cruickshank (photo)  on the sand dunes at the northwest end of Wickaninnish Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

42.(1) fall plumage September 10-11, 2023: Peter McAllister, mobs (photo: banded bird) Comber's Beach, Tofino (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)
43.(1) adult May 1-6, 2024: Daryl Henderson, Annette Bailey (photo) Sandhill Creek, Combers Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

      (2) adults May 7-10, 2024: Michael Shepard, mobs (photo) Wickaninnish Beach, Pacific Rim National Park [1 banded bird: rest unbanded] (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)
      (1) adult May 14, 2024: Adrian Dorst (photo) Long Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)
      (1) adult May 23, 2024: Ian Cruickshank (photo) Sandhill Creek Mouth, Comber’s Beach, Pacific Rim National Park (D. Cecile Pers. Comm.)

We wish to thank Michael Ashbee for giving us amazing photographs of Snowy Plovers he took in California. Please view more of Mike Ashbee’s amazing images at http://www.mikeashbeephotography.com/. We also want to thank Andrew Boycott for allowing us permission to use his photos of a recent Snowy Plover. All photographs are used here with the permission of the photographer and are protected by copyright law. Photographs are not to be reproduced, published or retransmitted on any website without the authorization of the photographer.

 

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