Natalie Donofrio, Jory Teltser, and Marsha C. Salett
Mountain Plover. All photographs by Natalie Donofrio.
Natalie Donofrio, a crew leader for Mass Audubon’s Coastal Waterbird Program, took plover monitoring to new heights with the discovery of a Mountain Plover (Charadrius montanus) (MOPL) at Long Beach, a primarily private beach just beyond Craigville Beach in Barnstable, Massachusetts, on July 21, 2023. A species of the shortgrass prairie rather than sandy shores, this mega-rarity was resting on the wrack line not far from the ocean’s edge—a habitat quite different from the dry prairies and tablelands of the western Great Plains and Colorado Plateau where it breeds.
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