These small, chunky plovers are uncommon to locally abundant migrants statewide, where they are among the most visible and easily identified small shorebirds. The only single-banded plover that occurs in Oregon, they can be remarkably easy to see when they are moving about on mud flats, and remarkably hard to detect when only their unmoving brown backs are visible against the mud.

It is an uncommon to locally abundant migrant, with most birds at estuaries and some concentrations in spring at larger lakes of southeast Oregon. In the fall, it's rare in the Cascades; in winter, it's uncommon at larger estuaries, especially on the south coast, is rare in western interior valleys and essentially is absent east of the Cascades.

Hear the call of the Semipalmated plover

Photo by ©Greg Gilson