Little Ringed Plover
Charadrius dubius
Also known as: Little Plover
Habitat
Ground
Diet
Invertebrate
Active Time
Diurnal
Size
39 g
About This Species
A small, sandy-brown wader with a neat black breast band and a distinctive yellow eye-ring, typically found on gravel and sandy riverbanks, reservoir margins and gravel pits across its Eurasian and African range. It runs in short bursts along open shoreline before pausing upright, and its presence is often given away by a sharp, descending piu-piu call in flight. Spring and summer, when birds are on their gravel-bar breeding territories, are the best times to see courtship and feeding behaviour.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- Keep a wide berth on open shingle and gravel during the breeding season, since nests are simple scrapes on bare ground that are extremely easy to miss and step on, and adults performing a broken-wing distraction display are signalling that a nest or chicks are nearby.
- Ground-nesting waders are legally protected from disturbance at the nest in many countries across its range, though the exact rules and penalties vary, so treat any shingle bar showing this behaviour as off-limits until you have moved well away.
- Viewing with binoculars from a path or vehicle, rather than walking out onto open gravel, is the safest approach for the birds.
Seasonal Activity
191,915 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Charadriiformes
- Family
- Charadriidae
Traits
- Diet
- Invertebrate
- Foraging
- Ground
- Activity
- Diurnal
- Body mass
- 39 g
Photo
(c) Геннадий, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Геннадий
CC-BY-NC-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.