All species › Waders, gulls and terns › Plovers and lapwings › Kentish Plover
Kentish Plover | Anarhynchus alexandrinus
Strandplevier | Chorlitejo Patinegro
The Kentish Plover is a small, pale plover of European, North African and Asian coasts that has been recorded in southern Africa only as a vagrant. Among the numerous White-Fronted Plovers it is easily overlooked; anyone seeing a pale plover with sharply defined dark breast patches and black legs should take a closer look.
Voice
A soft, short pit or twit, sometimes repeated, and a dry rattling prrr when agitated.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
15–17 cm. The upperparts are pale grey-brown, the underparts bright white, with a white collar round the hindneck and distinct, well-defined dark patches at the breast sides. In breeding plumage the male has a rufous crown, a black bar across the forecrown and a black eye-stripe; in non-breeding plumage and in the female the head marks are grey-brown. The bill is thin and black, the legs dark grey to black. In flight there is a clear white wing bar and much white at the tail sides.
Confusion species
The White-Fronted Plover Anarhynchus marginatus has weaker or absent breast patches, a warmer sandy tone, often a rusty wash on the breast, and greyer legs. The Chestnut-Banded Plover Anarhynchus pallidus is smaller, with a chestnut breast band. The Common Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula and the Little Ringed Plover Thinornis dubius have a complete breast band.
Habitat
Sandy beaches, tidal mudflats, lagoons, salt pans and coastal saltworks; in the breeding range also saline inland lakes. Where it has been seen in southern Africa it was mostly on saltworks or coastal lagoons among other small waders.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Only a few accepted records in the region, including from Namibia and South Africa. It breeds on the coasts and salt lakes of Europe, North Africa and Asia east to Japan, and winters south to the Sahel, the Red Sea and the East African coast, where it is rare as far as Tanzania.
How and when to look
At Walvis Bay and on the Western Cape saltworks check every pale plover with black legs and sharp dark breast patches. Photograph head, breast and legs and report the record to the rarities committee.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened, although numbers are falling in Europe and parts of Asia through disturbance and the loss of beaches and coastal lagoons. Of no significance for the population in southern Africa.
Scientific name
Anarhynchus alexandrinus | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Charadrius alexandrinus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Anarhynchus was introduced in 1832 by Quoy & Gaimard. Anarhynchus is Greek, from ana- 'backward' and rhunkhos 'bill', after the sideways-bent bill of the wrybill, the type species of the genus. alexandrinus is Latin for 'of Alexandria', the Egyptian port the first described specimen came from. The specimen the first description was based on came from Egypt.