Sandgrouse | Pteroclidae

Zandhoenders | Gangas y ortegas

Seeds make up almost the whole diet and are picked dry from the ground one at a time, many thousands in a day. That makes daily drinking essential: shortly after sunrise the birds fly in flocks and calling loudly to a waterhole, in a fast, direct flight that may cover several kilometres. The chicks find their own seeds but cannot reach water themselves. The male provides it with the feathers of his belly: their barbules coil up as soon as they are wet and hold water like a sponge. He wades in breast-deep, rocks and shakes his body until the feathers are saturated, and flies back to the nest, where the young strip the moisture from the down with their bills. The nest is no more than a shallow scrape in bare ground; the eggs and the flattened parent vanish against sand and stone, and only from a few metres away does the bird rise on fast wingbeats.