Baby Birdorable: Piping Plover

If you think our Birdorable birds are cute as adults, what about when they are babies? Below are some baby photos (shared via Flickr Creative Commons) of the Piping Plover.

When it comes to cute baby birds, it's hard to beat precocial shorebird chicks. Precocial chicks are ready and able to leave the nest soon after hatching. So they are covered in downy feathers, their eyes are open, but they are still tiny.

Piping Plovers are threatened, so their nests are monitored in several locations, leading to some spectacular photos of the extremely adorable chicks as they first make their way in the world.

Piping Plovers use a scrape on open beach habitat to nest. The scrape may be lined with small pebbles and shells. Incubation is performed by both the male and female, and takes around 26 to 28 days. They can walk away from the nest within hours of hatching.

Piping Plover chicks by USFWS Mountain-Prairie (CC BY 2.0)
Piping Plover chicks and eggs by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)
Piping Plover chicks by USDA NRCS Montana (public domain)
Piping Plover chick by Russ (CC BY 2.0)
Piping Plover chick by Russ (CC BY 2.0)
Piping Plover chick by Russ (CC BY 2.0)
Piping Plover chick by Seney National Wildlife Refuge (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Piping Plover chick by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)
Piping Plover chick by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)
Piping Plover chicks by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)
Young Piping Plover by Isaac Sanchez (CC BY 2.0)

Cute Piping Plover T-Shirts & Gifts

Comments

Spurwing Plover on May 18, 2022 at 6:49 AM wrote:
The Offspring on Monte and Rose

Leave a comment

Comments with links or HTML will be deleted. Your comment will be published pending approval.
Your email address will not be published

World Parrot Day

World Parrot Day is celebrated this year on May 31, 2019. The first World Parrot Day was in 2004. The event was initiated by the World Parrot Trust as an opportunity to highlight threats to wild and captive parrots around the...

2017 Bonanza Bird #2: Clark's Nutcracker

Our 2017 12-day Birdorable Bonanza continues today with an iconic mountain species of the North American west: Clark's Nutcracker! Clark's Nutcrackers are in the corvid family, related to crows and jays. They are intelligent and gregarious birds found in western parts of...

Baby Birdorable: Black-crowned Night-Heron

If you think our Birdorable birds are cute as adults, what about when they are babies? Below are some baby photos of the Black-crowned Night-Heron. Black-crowned Night-Herons are colonial nesters, building their nests in trees in close proximity to other herons, egrets, and ibises. Incubation...

Introducing the Red-eyed Vireo: A New World Songbird with a Memorable Tune

Today's new Birdorable is a New World songbird. Look-up, over here, see me, up here, it's the Red-eyed Vireo! That funny introduction above refers to a common mnemonic, or memory aid, to help birders remember the repetitive song of...