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The Delightfully Odd Magellanic Plover
This quirky shorebird just has a different way of doing things
© Daniel Sziklai
The Magellanic Plover is known for being a bit of an oddball. These shorebirds have a round body like a dove and even feed their young with milk produced in a part of their digestive system called the crop — a rare trait they share with doves. But genetic data revealed that Magellanic Plovers are neither plovers nor doves — they’re the only species in the family Pluvianellidae. Genetically speaking, they’re one of a kind.
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The Delightfully Odd Magellanic Plover
Written by Conor Gearin
This is BirdNote.
[Waves crashing ashore]
[Magellanic Plover call]
The Magellanic Plover is known for being… a bit of an oddball. For a while, scientists thought these shorebirds might be related to doves, because Magellanic Plovers feed their young with milk produced in a part of their digestive system called the crop. It’s a rare trait they share with doves. They even have gray feathers, pink legs, and a round body like a dove.
[Magellanic Plover alarm calls]
But genetic data revealed that Magellanic Plovers are neither a true plover nor a dove. Instead, they’re the only species in the family Pluvianellidae. Genetically speaking, they’re one of a kind.
Magellanic Plovers are native to southern Chile and Argentina. There are probably no more than several thousand of them in the world. National parks along Argentina’s coast provide habitat for the species.
[Magellanic Plover call]
Magellanic Plovers use their strong legs to sprint across the beach and dig in the sand for food. The birds drink by submerging their whole heads, then throwing them backwards — unlike other shorebirds, which drink by delicately dipping their bills underwater.
This species just has a different way of doing things — and the bird world is all the richer for it.
[Magellanic Plover alarm calls]
For BirdNote, I’m Ariana Remmel.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Content Director: Allison Wilson
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Magellanic Plover ML 42753541 recorded by Andrew Spencer.
Xeno Canto 48595 recorded by Bernabe Lopez-Lanus.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote March 2023
Narrator: Ariana Remmel
ID# MAGPLO-01-2023-03-09 MAGPLO-01
Reference: https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/magplo1/cur/introduction
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03036758.2016.1194297
Conor Gearin
Writer