This juvenile Diademed Sandpiper-Plover is starting to fill out and develop a more adult plumage. The chicks start out as cotton balls on toothpicks like all plovers, just more mottled than North American plovers. The adolescents don’t sport the striking diadem the adults have, but do have a richer and more varied coloration on their back. If you look carefully you can see the diadem starting to come in faintly on the top of this adolescent’s head.
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