The collared plover (''Anarhynchus collaris'') is a small

shorebird 245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...

in the

plover Plovers ( , ) are members of a widely distributed group of wader, wading birds of subfamily Charadriinae. The term "plover" applies to all the members of the subfamily, though only about half of them include it in their name. Species lis ...

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

, Charadriidae. It lives along coasts and riverbanks of the

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

, from central

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

south to

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

and

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. This small plover is long and weighs . Its upperparts are brown and the underparts white in all plumages. Adults have a black breast band. The male has a white forehead, bordered above by a black frontal bar, and below by a black stripe from the bill to the eye. The mid-crown and nape are chestnut and the legs are yellow. In flight, the

flight feather Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tai ...

s are dark with a white wing bar, and the tail shows white sides. The female collared plover is usually very similar to the male, but some individuals can be sexed by a brown tinge to the black areas. Immature birds lack any black on the head, and the breast band is replaced by brown patches on each side of the chest. The flight call is a sharp metallic ''pip''. Two

sympatric In biology, two closely related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter each other. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct spe ...

Charadrius ''Charadrius'' is a genus of plovers, a group of wading birds. The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. They are found throughout the world. Many ''Charadrius'' species are ...

'' species are very similar: The

snowy plover The snowy plover (''Anarhynchus nivosus'') is a small shorebird found in the Americas. It is a member of the bird family Charadriidae, which includes the plovers, dotterels, and lapwings. The snowy plover was originally described by John Cassin ...

is similar in size and structure to this species, but is paler above, has dark legs, and never has a complete breastband. semipalmated plovers are larger, thicker-billed, and has a pale collar. Ironically, it is the ''lack'' of a pale collar which gives the collared plover its

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

and scientific names. The collared plover is found on sandy coasts,

estuarine An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

mud, inland riverbanks and open sandy

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

s. It breeds from

south through

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

and most of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. It also occurs on some of the southern

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

islands, and both

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

and

Tobago Tobago, officially the Ward of Tobago, is an List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, island and Regions and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago, ward within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the larger islan ...

. It appears to be mainly sedentary, although there is some evidence for limited seasonal movements. Collared plovers feed on

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

s and other

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s, which are obtained by a run-and-pause technique, rather than the steady probing of some other wader groups. This species is not particularly gregarious, and seldom forms flocks. It is usually very wary. The timing of breeding activity varies depending on location: November to December in western Mexico, March to June in Costa Rica, January in Venezuela, and March in the lowlands of Ecuador. The male's courtship display involves fluffing out his breast feathers and running after the female; the species has no known aerial display. The

nest A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold Egg (biology), eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of ...

is a bare ground scrape well above the

tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables ...

or flood line on coasts and river shores or

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

s, or inland, often next to low cover, such as tufts of

grass Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family (biology), family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and spe ...

. The

clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that allows an output shaft to be disconnected from a rotating input shaft. The clutch's input shaft is typically attached to a motor, while the clutch's output shaft is connected to the mechanism that does th ...

is two pale buff eggs, spotted with brown. Like many ground-nesting species, adults perform a broken-wing display to lure presumed threats away from their nest and young.

Footnotes

References

* ffrench, Richard; O'Neill, John Patton & Eckelberry, Don R. (1991): ''A guide to the birds of Trinidad and Tobago'' (2nd edition). Comstock Publishing, Ithaca, N.Y.. * Hilty, Steven L. (2003): ''Birds of Venezuela''.

Christopher Helm Christopher Alexander Roger Helm (born Dundee, 1 February 1937 – 20 January 2007) was a Scottish book publisher, notably of ornithology related titles, including the ''Helm Identification Guides''. Born in Dundee, he was raised in Forfar, wh ...

, London. {{Taxonbar, from=Q1264712 collared plover Birds of the Americas collared plover collared plover