A medium-sized plover, with long legs and a slender long-winged profile. Alternate Adult has sandy-brown wings and back, black flight feathers, black-tipped tail, gray legs, white underparts, yellow wash on head and neck, white throat, forehead, and supercilium, black forecrown and lores, and a short, somewhat slender black bill. Basic Adult has sandy brown head with no black, diffuse whitish supercilium, and a broad whitish arc below the eye. Retains yellow wash on neck. Juvenile is similar to Basic Adult, buffier on the breast, and has pale edgings on wing feathers.

Length: 23 (cm) Wingspan: 58 (cm)

Voice:

Low whistles, grating flight calls, repeated whistles and harsh notes.

Habitat:

Dry fields, grasslands, uplands, sandy areas, prairies, agricultural lands.

Behavior:

Usually walks or runs along ground. Nest is a scrape lined with vegetation. Declined sharply from 300,000 birds in 1975 to just 10,000 by 1995, mostly due to loss of native prairie habitat.

Feeding:

Forages on ground, picking prey from vegetation or ground surface. Eats grasshoppers, beetles, and other insects.