Their breeding season extends over the summer months and ends some time around late July or early August. During mating the male will set a territory and perform displays to attract a female. Females lay multiple clutches of eggs with three eggs to a clutch; the eggs are off-white with blackish spots. Egg size decreases as the breeding season goes on because of the high energy cost on the females. It has been found that eggs laid during a time of drought tend to be larger providing the incubating chick with more nourishment and so a greater chance at survival. Mountain plovers perform uniparental incubation by both sexes. Females leave their first clutch to be incubated and tended to by the male and then lay a second clutch, which she tends to herself. This type of incubation suits the mountain plover well and allows for a greater yield of chicks compared to similar species of birds in which both the male and female tend a single clutch together. Females can mate with several males and have several male tended nests in one breeding season. This would result in a greater reproductive success for the female but there is a high energy cost on the female laying so many eggs and so it is more common for a female to lay only two clutches. If the eggs survive various dangers, especially such predators as coyotes, snakes, and swift foxes, they hatch in 28 to 31 days, and the hatchlings leave the nest within a few hours. In the next two or three days, the family usually moves one to two kilometers from the nest site to a good feeding area, often near a water tank for livestock.