Black-bellied Plover

On Monday, 26 August 2019, Erika and I checked out Bottle Beach State Park on our way home from a walk on the beach at Westport, Washington. Our Westport trip produced relatively few birds, and the tide was well out by the time we hit Bottle Beach. The only birds of interest were about 30 Black-bellied Plovers. I suspect these birds are adults, molting into their drab, gray winter plumage. In the spring, the birds will sport black faces and underparts—only their vents remain white. Black-bellied Plovers breed in the Arctic in both the Old and New worlds. In North America, they winter along the coasts from British Columbia and Massachuetts south to Chile and central Argentina.