Kentish Plover

Latin Name:

Charadrius alexandrinus

Category:

Size:

17cm

Description:

A rather dumpy wader with black bill and blackish legs. Like all small plovers it has sandy-brown upperparts, crown and cheeks, small dark patches on breast, and a white collar. Breeding plumage male has chestnut rear crown and black forehead, cheeks and breastsides. Strong white wingbars and edges to tail and rump.

Habitat:

Inhabits coastal sandflats, salt pans but inland on river sand bars, open lakeshores and drying floods.

Distribution:

Fairly common winter visitor and local breeding resident to most coasts and throughout lowlands.

The Kentish Plover is a local winter visitor and passage migrant.

Seen on the sand and mud banks, parties of up to 30 are regular in winter. Being largely muddy brown above, Kentish Plovers can be easily overlooked. The flocks are often scattered and the birds spend a lot of time standing around without moving. To find them it is often necessary to scan carefully over suitable habitat. Except in spring, most males in our area are in non-breeding plumage which has little or no black and is very similar to the female and juvenile plumages.

Call:

Call Description:

A soft dri…ip… and a whi…it alarm on ground. In flight an abrupt tit…tit.

IUCN:

Least Concern

At IITK:

sparse winter visitor

Kentish Plover

Birds@IITK

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Kentish Plover

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