{"id":50780,"date":"2018-01-28T05:50:54","date_gmt":"2018-01-28T12:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=50780"},"modified":"2024-11-21T13:08:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T19:08:20","slug":"foraging-semipalmated-plover-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2018\/01\/28\/foraging-semipalmated-plover-in-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Foraging Semipalmated Plover in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t gotten out into the field lately to take new images so I thought I would dig through the photos I haven’t posted on my blog yet and find something to share this morning and quite naturally I picked a shorebird image mostly because they were the birds that sparked my passion for bird photography.<\/p>\n

\"SemipalmatedSemipalmated Plover with marine worm – Nikon D200, handheld, f6.3, 1\/800, ISO 200, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Among my favorite plovers to photograph when I lived in Florida were Semipalmated Plovers, I only saw them during their nonbreeding season where they spent time along the Gulf coast.<\/p>\n

Semipalmated Plovers breed in mossy or sandy tundra in northern Canada and Alaska and they can be found on mudflats, lake shores, salt marshes, tidal flats and fields from Virginia south to Florida, Mexico and the the Caribbean of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and from the coast of Washington state south to Mexico on the Pacific coast during their nonbreeding season.<\/p>\n

They can be found practically anywhere in North America on migration and they even migrate through Utah at that time although I have yet to find one here.<\/p>\n

I photographed this foraging Semipalmated Plover at Fort De Soto County Park<\/span><\/a>‘s north beach the end of June in 2009.\u00a0 I got “down & dirty” to take this photo which basically means I was laying flat on the wet sand with my lens just barely above the beach to get a low angle perspective of the plover.<\/p>\n

I found that if I laid still long enough the birds had a tendency to ignore me and would come closer to me. The plover was actively foraging and when I photographed it the bird had just tugged a marine worm out of the wet sand. The thin layer of water on the sand helped to create an interesting reflection of the bird too.<\/p>\n

I loved watching these small plovers in Florida whether they were resting, foraging, bathing or running along the shoreline in front of the the waves coming in from the Gulf of Mexico and they were great fun to photograph.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Semipalmated Plover photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among my favorite plovers to photograph when I lived in Florida were Semipalmated Plovers, I only saw them during their nonbreeding season where they spent time along the Gulf coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_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":[27,25,704,2000,268],"tags":[4004,4039,4261,5229,5132,4286,4040,4136,4077,6339,5841,275,4017,3991,274,2315,9798,1824],"class_list":["post-50780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-florida","category-fort-de-soto-county-park","category-pinellas-county-florida","category-semipalmated-plovers","tag-adult","tag-beach","tag-charadrius-semipalmatus","tag-coast","tag-coastal","tag-eating","tag-feeding","tag-foraging","tag-gulf-of-mexico","tag-marine-worm","tag-plover","tag-plovers","tag-sand","tag-semipalmated-plover","tag-shorebirds-2","tag-summer-3","tag-tugging","tag-wet"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/semipalmated-plover-feeding-mia-mcpherson-7535.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-dd2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":96771,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2021\/10\/29\/semipalmated-plover-images\/","url_meta":{"origin":50780,"position":0},"title":"Semipalmated Plover Images","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"October 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"While rifling through my archives I came across some of my Semipalmated Plover photos that I took on the north beach at Fort De Soto County Park in 2008.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Inquisitive Semipalmated Plover on the north beach, Fort De Soto County Park, Pinellas County, Florida","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/semipalmated-plover-head-turn-mia-mcpherson-0977.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/semipalmated-plover-head-turn-mia-mcpherson-0977.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/semipalmated-plover-head-turn-mia-mcpherson-0977.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/semipalmated-plover-head-turn-mia-mcpherson-0977.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4687,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2012\/03\/28\/semipalmated-plover-on-mudflats\/","url_meta":{"origin":50780,"position":1},"title":"Semipalmated Plover On Mudflats","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"March 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"When I photographed Semipalmated Plovers in Florida I found that if I got down to their level and laid still they would approach me very closely. That takes patience but the effort is well worth it.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sandbar Semipalmated Plover, Fort De Soto County Park, Pinellas County, Florida","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-florida-mia-mcpherson-8677.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-florida-mia-mcpherson-8677.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-florida-mia-mcpherson-8677.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-florida-mia-mcpherson-8677.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 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Florida","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-mia-mcpherson-8683.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-mia-mcpherson-8683.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-mia-mcpherson-8683.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-mia-mcpherson-8683.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11517,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2013\/12\/02\/gotta-love-those-shorebirds-semipalmated-plover\/","url_meta":{"origin":50780,"position":3},"title":"Gotta Love Those Shorebirds – Semipalmated Plover","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"December 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I photographed this Semipalmated Plover as it foraged along the Gulf of Mexico in Florida in 2008 while I laid flat on the wet sand getting soaked as the waves pushed onto the shore around the sand bar in the distance.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fort De Soto Semipalmated Plover, Pinellas County, Florida","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-fort-desoto-florida-mia-mcpherson-7895.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semipalmated-plover-fort-desoto-florida-mia-mcpherson-7895.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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