#30 Snowy Plover

Easy to miss but hard to forget, the tiny sand-colored Snowy Plover perfectly blends into its surroundings, such as Pacific Coast beaches and interior salt flats. They forage in a stop-start manner higher up the beach rather than by the water’s edge, and for their nests they make shallow scrapes in the ground. Young Snowy Plovers leave the nest within 3 hours of hatching and begin foraging on their own almost immediately.