Sandgrouse | Pteroclidae

Zandhoenders | Gangas

The most striking feature lies in the male's belly feathers: their barbules coil up when wetted and hold water like a sponge. He soaks his underparts at the drinking place until the plumage is saturated, flies back to the brood and lets the chicks strip the water out of his feathers with their bills — nowhere else in the bird world is water carried this way. The female is more finely and densely barred than the male and vanishes completely on the nest; the nest is no more than an unlined shallow scrape holding usually three elongated eggs, equally blunt at both ends. The pair take turns incubating, with the male sitting through the night. The species of this region divide the day between them: one flock comes to drink soon after sunrise, another in the late afternoon or in the last light, and each species has its own call in flight. The downy chicks leave the scrape within a day, pick up their own seed from the start, and press themselves motionless to the ground when danger appears.