Mountain Plover  

Nicknamed the “Prairie Ghost,” the Mountain Plover often turns its back to an observer or a disturbance and stands motionless, a behavior that results in the virtual disappearance of the drably marked bird (see photo at left). It is often mistaken as the similar sized killdeer (see photo at right) but is quieter, lacks black breast bands and has longer legs.

A migrant, the Mountain Plover arrives on its breeding grounds in late March - April. It breeds on flat, bare ground in shortgrass prairies with sparse, short vegetation as well as agricultural fields in the western Great Plains states of the U.S.  More than 50% of the continental population breeding on the eastern plains of Colorado. Most plovers leave their breeding grounds in August for their wintering grounds in the dry grasslands of central and southern California eastward to southern Texas and in northern Mexico.
 

Mountain Plover habitat. Notice all of the bare ground.

This upland shorebird's nest is just a slight depression in the soil (scraping) made by the male. Pebbles, plant and cow manure fragments may be added later. The female generally lays three eggs in each of two nests during the summer. The first nest is incubated by the male, the second by the female. Average incubation time (laying of last egg to hatching) is 29 days. Chicks usually leave the nest within three hours of hatching and soon feed themselves, but stay with an adult until after fledging (30-36 days after hatching). Mountain Plovers eat insects including grasshoppers and beetles. Most live two years; the oldest documented was 10 years old.

Over the last 150 years, changes in land use, primarily the conversion of grassland to cropland and commercial and urban development, along with transformation of the grassland herbivore community from bison to domestic livestock have altered the abundance and distribution of the Mountain Plover. The continental population has declined by approximately 60% since 1966. The Mountain Plover was proposed for listing under the Federal Endangered Species Act in 1999, but was withdrawn from consideration in 2003 because threats to the species were not as significant as earlier believed and would not likely endanger the species in the foreseeable future. Regardless, the general rarity of the species and continued alterations of its habitat warrant its classification as a species of high conservation concern.

Due to their dependence on bare ground for nesting, plovers are attracted to heavily grazed or recently burned shortgrass prairie, prairie dog towns, and cultivated land. More than 80% of the breeding habitat in Colorado and Nebraska is privately owned and the majority of landowners are farmers and/or ranchers. Thus, engaging private landowners and addressing conservation on cultivated land is crucial for conserving Mountain Plover.

To increase landowner awareness of the Mountain Plover and secure landowner participation RMBO initiated the Mountain Plover Nest Conservation in Cutivated Fields Project in 2003. This gave landowners a system that helped identify and mark nests prior to working in their fields. We developed a brochure titled "Got Plover - We Need You," a landowner guide to identifying and locating Mountain Plover and their nests to distribute to landowners throughout the breeding range.

To determine whether nest marking is a management strategy capable of improving the viability of Mountain Plover populations RMBO conducted research that quantified daily survival of nests and fates of protected vs. unprotected nests.