Charadrius melodius
Order Charadriiformes
Family Charadriidae
Subfamily Charadriinae
♂ Adult male.— Forehead, throat, and ring around neck white; forward part of crown black; a partial ring, broken in the middle of the breast, black; rest of upper parts light brownish-gray; tip of tail black; breast and belly white; base of bill orange, tip black; feet yellow.
♀ Adult female.— Similar, but the black bars tending toward brownish, and less distinct.
Eggs, laid in a hollow on little pebbles on the open sand, creamy white, speckled or spotted with dark brown.
The Piping Plover is one of the few waders that breed on the coasts of New York and New England; it may therefore be looked for in June and early July, when there is only the Spotted Sandpiper from which it must be distinguished. It also occurs as a regular but not common migrant in April and May, and again in August and September. It breeds on the sand beaches of Long Island, Martha’s Vineyard, and the adjoining islands, and sparingly on Cape Cod, at Ipswich, Mass., and on the Maine coast.
Its sweet but mournful call consists of two notes, pi-pee’, the first very short and about half an interval above the second. The bird frequents the upper part of the beach, where its pale colors harmonize so perfectly with the dry sand that it is often invisible till it starts to fly. It bobs, like its relative the Semipalmated Plover, but may be distinguished by its lighter color, and by the difference in the black collar, which in the Piping Plover does not cross the breast.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)