The three-banded plover, or three-banded sandplover (''Charadrius tricollaris''), is a small

wader 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, ...

. This

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 ...

is resident and generally sedentary in much of

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

and

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. It occurs mainly on inland rivers, pools, lakes and pans, frequenting their exposed shores. This species is often seen as single individuals, but it will form small flocks. It hunts by sight for insects, worms 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. Three-banded plovers have a sharp whistled ''weeet-weet'' call. Its larger and darker-plumaged

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

Forbes's plover Forbes's plover (''Charadrius forbesi'') or Forbes's banded plover is a small wader. This plover is resident in much of west Africa, mainly on inland rivers, pools and lakes. Its nest is a scrape lined with small pebbles in rocky uplands. After ...

, replaces it in

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

and in the moist tropics. The two species have largely

allopatric Allopatric speciation () – also referred to as geographic speciation, vicariant speciation, or its earlier name the dumbbell model – is a mode of speciation that occurs when biological populations become geographically isolated from ...

breeding ranges. Both species present a distinctively elongated profile, due to their proportionally long tail and wings.

Description

The adult three-banded plover is 18 cm in length. It has long wings and a very long tail, and therefore looks different from most other small plovers in flight, the exception being the closely related Forbes's plover. The adult three-banded plover has medium brown upperparts, and the underparts are white except for the two black breast bands, separated by a white band, which give this species its common and scientific names. The head is strikingly patterned, with a black crown, white supercilia extending from the white forehead to meet on the back of the neck, and a grey face becoming brown on the neck. The

orbital ring An orbital ring is a concept of an artificial ring placed around a body and set rotating at such a rate that the apparent centrifugal force is large enough to counteract the force of gravity. For the Earth, the required speed is on the order of ...

orange-red Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color family and pigment most often used between antiquity and the 19th century from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide). It is synonymous with red orange, which often takes a moder ...

, and the base of the otherwise black bill is rosy red in colour. The Malagasy subspecies ''C. t. bifrontatus'' has a grey band between the bill and the white forehead, and the sides of the head are grey. A genetic study reported genetic differentiation between Madagascar and the mainland population. The sexes are similar with respect to plumage and size. Juveniles of the nominate and Malagasy subspecies also resemble the adults, although the forehead is brownish for a short time, and the wing coverts show buff fringes. This species is distinguished from the larger and darker Forbes's plover in that the latter has a brown forehead and lacks a white wingbar.

Breeding

Its nest is a bare scrape on shingle. Egg laying occurs from March to June in the tropics, but mainly (over 70%) from July to October (i.e. late winter to early spring) in southern Africa.

References

* Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey and Warwick Tarboton, ''SASOL Birds of Southern Africa'' (Struik 2002) * Hayman, Marchant and Prater ''Shorebirds''

External links

* Three-banded plover
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds
{{Taxonbar, from=Q121596 three-banded plover Birds of Africa three-banded plover three-banded plover