Birder Susan McWhiter located a rare Piping Plover while birding at the Hickerson Road Sod Farm in Coffee County, Tennessee. Piping Plovers looks similar to a Semipalmated Plovers, but is distinguished by lighter overall appearance and orange legs.
There are only 147 reports for a Piping Plover in Tennessee, according to eBird, and many of those reports are from different people observing the same handful of birds. For example, 10 different birders submitted reports of this Piping Plover over the two days that it was being observed.
Thanks go out to McWhiter for quickly reporting the Piping Plover’s presence. Her quick actions which has provided other an opportunity to observe it.
If you observe a infrequent or rare bird in Tennessee, please use your phone to report its presence to the Tennessee Rare Bird Alert Facebook group. Please include the county where the bird is located, as well as the best possible description on where you saw the bird. Be sure to include an address and GPS coordinates, if possible.
If you have a photo you are encouraged to post it. We encourage you to use your mobile phone take a photo of the LED screen of your camera to included a diagnostic photo as part of your report. The goal of the group is to share the presence as quickly as possible, so don’t worry about photo quality. You can always post a report and add a photo later to supplement the report.