Their breeding habitat is open ground on beaches or flats across northern Canada and Alaska.

They are migratory and winter in coastal areas of the southern United States, the Caribbean and much of South America.

They are extremely rare vagrants to western Europe, and have been found in Tierra del Fuego and the Isles of Scilly.

[5] Their true status may be obscured by the difficulty in identifying them from the very similar ringed plover of Eurasia, of which it was formerly considered a subspecies.

Semipalmated plovers forage for food on beaches, tidal flats and fields, usually by sight.