Nest sites typically occur in flat, open areas with sandy or saline substrates. The majority of snowy plovers are site-faithful, returning to the same breeding site in subsequent breeding seasons. Birds often nest in the exact same location as the previous year. The breeding season of the coastal population of the western snowy plover extends from mid March through mid September. The usual clutch size is three eggs.
Males incubate at night, females during the day.
Incubation lasts about 27 days. Plover chicks are precocial, and leave the nest and nesting territory within hours after hatching to search for invertebrate foods on the beach front or in the sand dunes. Chicks fledge within 30 days. Snowy plovers will renest after loss of a clutch or brood. After loss of a clutch or brood or successful hatching of a nest, plovers may renest in the same colony site or move, sometimes up to several hundred miles, to other colony sites to nest.