Waders, gulls and terns | Charadriiformes

Families in this order

• Stone-curlews | Burhinidae1 speciesLarge yellow eyes and a short, heavy bill with a swollen tip: these are birds of dusk and darkness that spend the day motionless on the ground, where their sandy, streaked plumage makes them hard to separate from the soil. The legs are long, with a conspicuously thickened joint halfway down that gives the group its name, and carry three short, thick toes with no hind toe. They live on dry, stony or sandy open country, often far from water, taking beetles, worms, lizards and mice on foot. The nest is a scrape with two eggs, and as evening falls a far-carrying, wailing call gives them away.
• Avocets and stilts | Recurvirostridae3 speciesExceptionally long legs and a thin, flexible bill, either straight or curved upwards: waders that walk belly-deep into shallow, often brackish or saline water. The front toes are webbed, so they can also feed while swimming; one build picks prey one at a time from the surface, the other sweeps the half-opened bill sideways through the water and feels what passes between the mandibles. In every species the plumage is a crisp pattern of black and white that changes little between summer and winter. They breed in loose colonies on bare ground beside water, lay three or four eggs in a scrape, and drive intruders off with loud calls and diving attacks.
• Oystercatchers | Haematopodidae1 speciesA long, heavy, laterally flattened orange-red bill is the tool of this family: it is driven like a chisel between the shells of a bivalve or used like a hammer on the shell itself, and it wears down so fast in the work that it grows continuously. With it go short, sturdy legs with three toes, a red eye-ring, and a plumage that is either black and white or wholly black, alike in both sexes. Unlike almost all other waders, the chicks do not feed themselves: opening shellfish takes so much practice that the parents go on feeding them for months. The clutch is two or three eggs in a scrape, and the birds announce themselves in loud, piercing piping displays, small groups walking about with the neck drawn in and the bill pointed down.
• Plovers and lapwings | Charadriidae11 speciesCompact birds with a large head, a short neck and a short bill thickened towards the tip, made for picking prey off the surface rather than probing into it. They feed with a characteristic pattern of run, stop and peck, also after dark. Black bands across breast and head break up the outline against bare ground. The clutch is usually three or four spotted eggs in a scrape on sand, gravel or closely cropped ground; when danger comes the parents lure an intruder away with a feigned broken wing. Eleven species have been recorded in the region. Killdeer, Wilson's Plover and Snowy Plover breed there; Southern Lapwing from South America occurs on Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and the southern islands. Many of the species are winter visitors or passage migrants from North America, such as Grey Plover, American Golden Plover, Semipalmated Plover and Piping Plover, which has an important wintering area in the Bahamas. Migratory species have long, pointed wings.
• Jacanas | Jacanidae2 speciesA small family of eight species in tropical freshwater wetlands worldwide. Two species occur in the region: Northern Jacana on Cuba, Hispaniola and Jamaica, and Wattled Jacana on Trinidad and some of the southern islands. Their hallmark is the enormously long toes and claws, which spread the bird's weight over a wide area and let it walk across water lilies and other floating vegetation. The body is compact and the flight short and fluttering with legs trailing, revealing yellow-green flight feathers. Northern Jacana has a yellow frontal shield, Wattled Jacana a red shield with wattles. They take insects, snails and other invertebrates from leaf surfaces, and occasionally seeds. In both species the usual sex roles are reversed: the larger female holds a territory and mates with several males, each of which builds a floating nest and cares for eggs and young alone. When danger threatens the male tucks the chicks under his wings. Calls are rasping and chattering.
• Sandpipers and snipes | Scolopacidae30 speciesThe bill is not only long and sensitive but mobile: the tip of the upper mandible alone can be raised, so the bird can seize a worm deep in the mud without opening the bill along its whole length. Length and curvature differ greatly from species to species, so that birds feeding side by side on the same flat reach different depths and different prey. The plumage is grey-brown and finely marked, and changes completely twice a year: a conspicuous breeding dress and a plain winter one. Four pear-shaped eggs in a scrape, chicks that find their own food from the first day, and outside the breeding season large flocks that wheel as one over the tidal flats.
• Skuas | Stercorariidae5 speciesGull-like in shape, but with a heavier chest, a strongly hooked bill made up of separate horny plates with a fleshy cere over the base, and sharp, curved claws on webbed feet; females are larger than males. The plumage is brown or grey-brown, in several species with a pale and a dark morph side by side, and a white patch at the base of the primaries flashes in flight. They live largely on what other seabirds catch, forcing gulls and terns in long chases to give up their prey, and they also take eggs, chicks and carrion. They breed on open tundra and moorland, lay two eggs in a scrape and defend it with diving attacks; the rest of the year is spent at sea.
• Gulls and terns | Laridae30 speciesThree fully webbed front toes and a small, raised hind toe: these birds can rest on the water, and salt glands above the eyes let them drink sea water as well. Two builds stand side by side within the family: heavier birds with a stout, slightly hooked bill that will eat almost anything they can get hold of, and slighter birds with a thin, pointed bill held downwards while hovering, before they drop into the water. They nest almost always in ground colonies, with one to three blotched eggs; the downy chicks stay at the nest and are fed by both parents, unlike the self-feeding young of the waders. Most species moult twice a year and show a different head pattern in winter, and in the largest species it takes two to four years before the adult plumage is complete.