In breeding plumage, its black face and underparts are edged by a white stripe, with gold-spangled upperparts. It breeds on tundra and searches the ground for insects.
Adults in breeding plumage have a black face and underparts, gold-black-white upperparts, and a white stripe. In nonbreeding plumage, the back remains gold-spotted, with a pale eyebrow and smudgy grey breast.
It breeds on tundra in western Alaska and elsewhere in the Arctic. During migration and the nonbreeding season it uses open places such as grasslands, farmland, mudflats, and shorelines, where it mainly searches the ground for insects.
The male makes a shallow scrape in tundra vegetation and lines the chosen nest with lichens, grass, moss and leaves such as willow. A scrape may be reused for many years.
The clutch is four eggs. Both parents incubate and tend the young. After hatching the family moves toward moist areas with shrubs and grasses.
Chicks hatch covered in down and can move about on their own soon afterwards. Juveniles remain on the breeding grounds longer than adults and migrate later.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.