Wilson's Plover

During a stay in Belize on Caye Caulker we had a bird watching trip with Rodriego on March 17, 2026. Rodriego picked us up in a small boat with an outboard motor at a dock right outside our hotel at 6:00 a.m. We were staying at La Isla Resort Hotel on the east side. We headed north a short distance then traveled west through the Split (a small waterway that intersects Caye Caulker into north and south islands) and then headed up the west side of the north island, very close to the north end. Along the way we passed a very sandy section of shoreline that had a number of shore species. I photographed what I thought was a semipalmated plover that turned out to be an unexpected lifer for me, a Wilson's plover, which I'd never heard of.  I took several photos, but they were all basically the same shot. 

There are four subspecies. I saw the nominate ssp. wilsonia, which breeds along the Atlantic, Gulf and Caribbean coast of Middle and Central America south to Belize, the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles and the Leeward Islands and overwinters along the Gulf Coast. The crown and breast band of the female are grayish brown (black on the male); the breast band is narrow; the auriculars (area below the eye, i.e. ear) are washed with rufous; the dark loral stripe is narrow, not extending to anterior portion of the forehead or malar region; the white band across the forehead is broad;  and the white line above the auriculars is distinct. It has a thick black bill, the thickest of all the plovers. 

Illustration of a male, ssp. wilsonia, from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World. It is strictly a coastal plover.