{"id":3074,"date":"2011-09-09T08:32:54","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T14:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=3074"},"modified":"2026-04-28T05:20:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:20:19","slug":"friday-photos-wilsons-plover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2011\/09\/09\/friday-photos-wilsons-plover\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Photos – Wilson’s Plover"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wilson's<\/a>\u00a0Adult Wilson’s Plover (Charadrius wilsonia) in dried Sea Purslane – Nikon D200, handheld, f6.3, 1\/640, ISO 250, +0.3 EV, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

This Friday’s Photo is that of a Wilson’s Plover, a species I very much enjoyed photographing while I lived in Florida. Wilson’s Plovers are strictly coastal shorebirds so here in Utah I don’t get to see them.<\/p>\n

They are found from the mid-Atlantic states down to Florida, Cuba and all along the Gulf shorelines. A subspecies; Charadrius wilsonia beldingi<\/em>, is found on the Mexican Pacific coast and the Gulf of California.<\/p>\n

Wilson’s Plovers nest in simple scrapes that can be found on the sandy shorelines and in sand dunes. This adult did have several chicks at the time I photographed it and it had been running along trying to keep up with the young birds when it took a short break on this sand dune amongst some dried Sea Purslane.<\/p>\n

The chicks appeared to have a mind of their own and were running willy-nilly through the dunes. Must be exhausting for the adults to keep up with with their young. I couldn’t help but laugh at the actions of the seemingly strong-willed but very curious chicks.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

* I’m stuck at home today waiting for the delivery of a replacement for my Jobu Black Widow Gimbal HD head. I had trouble with the older version when my locking pin broke off a few weeks ago. Jobu Design has been great about accepting the old Gimbal head back and replacing it with the newer version for a small upgrade fee. Although I rarely use a tripod, when I need it I really need it! My Nikkor 200-400mm VR f\/4 gets a bit heavy to handhold for me so I can’t wait to get this new Gimbal set up.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Friday’s Photo is that of a Wilson’s Plover, a species I very much enjoyed photographing while I lived in Florida. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,704,269],"tags":[4004,17532,4021,37,595,4077,519,3980,4235,3982,274,102,361],"class_list":["post-3074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-florida","category-fort-de-soto-county-park","category-wilsons-plovers","tag-adult","tag-anarhynchus-wilsonia","tag-bird-photography","tag-florida-2","tag-friday-photos","tag-gulf-of-mexico","tag-nature","tag-pinellas-county","tag-sand-dunes","tag-sea-purslane","tag-shorebirds-2","tag-wildlife","tag-wilsons-plover"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/wilsons-plover-feather-mia-mcpherson-6917.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-NA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6765,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2012\/12\/11\/wilsons-plover-in-habitat\/","url_meta":{"origin":3074,"position":0},"title":"Wilson’s Plover In Habitat","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"December 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This Wilson's Plover and its mate were being run ragged chasing after the two chicks they had fledged, this adult stopped in front of me where I had laid down in the sugary white sand and rested a few moments in the dried Sea Purslane stalks.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Wilson's Plover in dried Sea Purslane","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/wilsons-plover-feather-mia-mcpherson-6917.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/wilsons-plover-feather-mia-mcpherson-6917.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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