For breeding, depends upon relatively undisturbed levees and islands within or near feeding areas, on estuarine salt ponds, or other estuarine or inland shallow-water impoundments or lakes. A portion of the central coast wintering population is migratory, moving inland to the Central Valley, northeastern California, and eastern Sierra Nevada in mid-March to breed. No additional data found. Prior to egg laying, territory was centered around feeding area. Precocial young are mobile within 3-4 hr after hatching.
Nests are subject to flooding if water levels in salt ponds are raised.
Life histories of North American shorebirds. Cogswell, H. L. 1977. Water birds of California. California Press, Berkeley. Ehrlich, P. R., D. S. Dobkin, and D. Wheye.