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Crab-Plover | Dromas ardeola
Krabplevier | Dromas
A singular black-and-white wader, the only member of its family, with a heavy, black, dagger-like bill with which it crushes crabs. It is a speciality of the coasts around the Arabian Peninsula and the only wader that breeds in self-dug burrows in sand.
Voice
Noisy: a barking, nasal kyow or ka-how, and in flocks a persistent, shrill chatter chuk-chuk-chuk; also heard at night.
Recording: Sven Normant — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
Large and long-legged, with a strikingly heavy, straight black bill and long blue-grey legs. The plumage is white with a black mantle and black primaries; the head is white, sometimes with fine grey streaks on the hindcrown. Juveniles have the mantle silver-grey instead of black and the crown streaked grey. In flight the legs project well beyond the tail and the wings show a black-and-white pattern with black primaries. Often in noisy flocks, roosting upright on a sandbank.
Confusion species
Pied Avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) is also black and white, but has a black cap, a thin upturned bill and black scapular stripes instead of a black mantle. Eurasian Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) has a black head and breast, an orange-red bill and pink legs. At a distance a flock of roosting Crab-Plovers can recall terns or gulls; the long legs and straight, thick bill settle it.
Habitat
Tidal flats, sandy and muddy shores, coral reefs at low tide, mangrove creeks and coastal lagoons, where it mainly catches crabs; active at low tide, also at dusk and by moonlight. Breeds in dense colonies on low, sandy islands, where each pair digs a burrow one to two metres long in the sand; the single egg is partly incubated by the warmth of the sand.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Breeds in the north-western Indian Ocean. In the region the largest colonies are in the Gulf: on Bubiyan in Kuwait, on islands off the Saudi Gulf coast and in Abu Dhabi (including around Abu al Abyad); also on islands in the Saudi and Yemeni Red Sea, such as the Farasan Islands and around Kamaran. Outside the breeding season widespread along the coasts of the Gulf, Oman and Yemen; the flats of Barr al Hikman and Masirah in Oman hold the largest winter flocks in the world, and it also occurs regularly around Socotra and in Bahrain and Qatar. Scarce along the Egyptian Red Sea coast, mainly in the south; a vagrant in Israel (Eilat). Beyond the region it breeds in Iran, Eritrea and Somalia and winters along the coasts of East Africa to Madagascar, and in India and Sri Lanka.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In winter large flocks gather on the flats of Barr al Hikman and at Filim and Shannah opposite Masirah (Oman); Khor Kalba and the Abu Dhabi coast (Emirates) and northern Bahrain are also reliable. Come at low tide, when the birds hunt on the flats, and keep well away from breeding islands to avoid disturbing the colonies.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened, but very vulnerable because of its limited number of large breeding colonies: coastal development, land reclamation and recreation in the Gulf, disturbance and egg collecting on breeding islands, and oil pollution threaten the species. Protecting the breeding islands, such as Bubiyan and the islands of Abu Dhabi, is of great importance.
Scientific name
Dromas ardeola | Paykull, 1805
Paykull described the species in 1805 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Dromas in that same work. Dromas is the Greek word for 'runner' — for the way Crab-plover runs across the mudflats after crabs. ardeola is a diminutive of the Latin ardea, 'heron' — 'little heron', for the long-legged, heron-like appearance and black-and-white plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from India.