Common ringed plover

Voice

A soft, cheerful two-note too-lee, rising at the end, heard everywhere along the tideline. In display flight a rhythmically repeated tuwee-tuwee-tuwee over the breeding ground. Calls all year, particularly on taking off and from night migrants in August and September.

Identification

Sturdier and rounder than Little Ringed, with a broad black breast band, black mask and white forehead. The bill is orange with a black tip, the legs bright orange. In flight a broad white wingbar runs the length of the wing. In winter and on juveniles black and orange are replaced by brown and dull yellow-orange, and the breast band looks narrower and sometimes broken.

Confusion species

Little Ringed Plover is the main pitfall: it lacks the white wingbar and shows a yellow eye-ring, an all-dark bill and dull yellow legs. Kentish Plover is paler and longer-legged and always has a broken breast band, with an all-black bill and dark legs. In flight the Ringed Plover's wingbar is the broadest of the three.

Habitat

Sand and shell beaches, mudflats, saltmarsh edges and drying banks; breeds on bare shell ridges, dredged ground and northern tundra. Outside the breeding season mainly on estuarine mud, where it hunts by sight and feeds scattered and alone among other waders rather than in tight flocks.

Range and movements

Breeds from north-west Europe to the Arctic tundra of Greenland and Siberia, the northern populations moving through the Wadden Sea to West Africa. In the Netherlands a scarce coastal and Delta breeder but a numerous passage migrant and winter visitor. In Iberia mostly a migrant and winterer in estuaries and deltas.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Reach a mudflat two hours after high water in May or August and follow the falling waterline; the birds spread out over freshly exposed mud. Watch for the distinctive stop-run-pick rhythm, which identifies the species long before plumage detail resolves in the binoculars.

Conservation status

Arctic populations remain numerous, but west European breeders are declining through recreational pressure on beaches, coastal defence works and predation. In the Netherlands the breeding population has shrunk badly while passage numbers hold up reasonably well. Disturbance of high-tide roosts is a continuing concern.