The Kittlitz’s Plover is a small plover

Plover

Plovers are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae. There are about 40 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or "dotterel". The closely related lapwing subfamily, Vanellinae, comprises another 20-odd species.Plovers are found throughout...

 found in much of Sub-Saharan Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, Madagascar

Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

, and the Nile

Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

 delta. Some birds, especially in coastal areas, are resident, other populations are migratory

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

 or nomadic.

Description

The adult Kittlitz’s Plover is 14–16 cm long. In breeding plumage it has a grey-brown back, crown, and wings, an orange breast shading to white on the lower belly, and long dark grey legs. The forehead and throat are white, with black lores and a black frontal bar, the latter extending as a stripe down the sides of the neck and around the hind neck.

In winter, the adults lose the distinctive face pattern and resemble Kentish Plover

Kentish Plover

The Kentish Plover, Charadrius alexandrinus, is a small wader in the plover bird family. Despite its name, this species no longer breeds in Kent, or even Great Britain...

s, but they are smaller, longer-legged and longer-billed

Beak

The beak, bill or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds which is used for eating and for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship and feeding young...

. They have less uniform upperparts than Kentish, and always show a pink or orange breast colouration. Juvenile Kittlitz’s Plovers are similar to winter adults, but the underpart colour is often restricted to just a narrow gorget. In flight, the primary flight feather

Flight feather

Flight feathers are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges while those on the tail are called rectrices . Their primary function is to aid in the generation of both thrust and lift, thereby...

s are dark with a short white wing bar.

The Kittlitz’s Plover forages for food on open dry mud and short grass, usually close to water. The specific name, pecuarius, means "grazer", referring to the grassland habitat. It hunts usually by sight for invertebrate

Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

s including insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s, earthworm

Earthworm

Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...

s, crustacean

Crustacean

Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...

s, and molluscs.

The call is a plaintive tee peep and may give a hard trip when alarmed.

This species is named for Baron Heinrich von Kittlitz

Heinrich von Kittlitz

Friedrich Heinrich Freiherr von Kittlitz was a German artist, naval officer, explorer and naturalist. He was a descendant of a family of old Prussian nobility ....

. It is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA

AEWA

The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds is the largest of its kind developed so far under the Bonn Convention. It was concluded on 16 June 1995 at The Hague, the Netherlands and entered into force on 1 November 1999 after the required number of at least fourteen...

) applies.

Breeding

Its breeding habitat is open ground on beaches or dry mudflats, near water, and with little or no plant growth. The nest is a simple scrape, and both parents incubate the usually two eggs. If a potential predator approaches the nest, the adult will walk away from the scrape, calling to attract the intruder and feigning a broken wing. Of course, once the intruder is far enough from the nest, the plover flies off. If the adult has enough warning, she will stand above the eggs and shuffle sand and debris over them before moving away from the nest.

Kittlitz’s Plover is gregarious outside the breeding season, feeding and roosting in mostly small groups, but in flocks of up to 250 on migration.