17-7-2016 VILLALONGA RESERVOIR - LITTLE RINGED PLOVER (Charadrius dubius)

The little ringed plover (Charadrius dubius ) is a small plover. The genus name Charadrius is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from Ancient Greek kharadrios a bird found in river valleys (kharadra, "ravine"). The specific dubius is Latin for doubtful, since Sonnerat, writing in 1776, thought this bird might be just a variant of common ringed plover.

Adult little ringed plovers have a grey-brown back and wings, a white belly and a white breast with one black neckband. They have a brown cap, a white forehead, a black mask around the eyes with white above and a short dark bill. The legs are flesh-coloured and the toes are all webbed.

This species differs from the larger ringed plover in leg colour, the head pattern, and the presence of a clear yellow eye-ring.

Their breeding habitat is open gravel areas near freshwater, including gravel pits, islands and river edges across the Palearctic including northwestern Africa. They nest on the ground on stones with little or no plant growth. Both males and females take turns incubating the eggs.

They are migratory and winter in Africa. These birds forage for food on muddy areas, usually by sight. They eat insects and worms.

Delicately built small plover with bright yellow eyerings. Note dull pinkish legs and large white forehead patch (in adults). Plumage much like bulkier Ringed Plover, but white eyebrow continues unbroken across forehead. In flight shows narrow, indistinct whitish wing stripe. Breeds on stony substrates around lakes, gravel pits, and along rivers; migrants occur in wide variety of fresh and brackish wetland habitats, but rarely out on open tidal areas. Clipped “peu” call quite distinct from call of similar Common Ringed Plover.

Even without close scrutiny, spring will see Little Ringed Plover especially being vocal and ostentatious, performing its slow-flapping display flight like a giant butterfly or bat, and chasing rivals around potential habitat with loud harsh prree calls. This contrasts with its more usual pee-oo vocalisation, as well as with Ringed Plover’s poo-eep or peep sounds. The latter also has a quieter, more ground-based display involving the horizontal flattening of its body and tail and raising of the wings.

Both species can share gravelly habitats for breeding, even inland. Little Ringed is a more slender, slightly longer-legged bird with a bright yellow eyering, an all-black beak – bar a small amount of yellow at the base of the lower mandible – and a white line above the black-and-white forehead, as well as the black lores that both species have.

The stockier Ringed Plover has thick, bright orange legs as opposed to Little Ringed’s twig-like dull pink. Ringed also has a much thicker black breast band and an orange base to its black-tipped beak.

In flight, the two are hard to confuse, as Ringed Plover has an obvious thin white wing-bar stretching onto the primaries, whereas ‘LRP’ has a very faint secondary bar at most. Both have white outer tail feathers, but these are more apparent in Ringed.