Snowy Plovers are birds of beaches, dry mud, or salt flats. Their pale dorsal coloration blends with their surroundings when they turn and face away from intruders, as is their habit, to hide the more conspicuous dark markings on their head and breast. They nest in a scrape on bare ground where there is little or no vegetation, on broad beaches, or by brackish or salty interior wetlands. Snowy Plovers lay eggs in early May, which are incubated by both parents. In some populations, the female deserts the brood soon after hatching and begins a second clutch with a new mate, leaving the first brood in the care of the male. The chicks are quickly able to feed themselves and, when confronted with danger, scatter and then lie still on the sand, relying on their cryptic coloration to hide them. Nest sites are often grouped together in a loose colony, sometimes near nesting terns.