Appearance
This plover is smaller and more compact than European golden plover. It has a striking whitish supercilium in all plumages and has plain wings in flight. Adults in summer are unmistakable, with a chestnut breast bordered above with white, black belly and warm brown back. The legs are yellow, and the short bill is black. As with the phalaropes, the female is brighter than the male. The male dotterel generally is responsible for incubation and looks after the chicks. In most cases the cock dotterel successfully prevents other males from getting his mate and fertilizing her eggs. He usually rears chicks that he has fathered and only 4.6% of chicks were not the genetic offspring of the caring male, corresponding to 9.1% broods affected.Winter birds lack the rich underpart colouration, apart from the white breast line, and are greyer above. Young birds are similar but have a scaly appearance to their backs. The dotterel's food is insects and other small invertebrates such as snails and worms and shellfish. These are obtained by a run-and-pause technique, rather than the steady probing of some other wader groups. The flight call is a soft "pyurr". The female's song is a simple repetitive whistle.
Distribution
This species is migratory, wintering in a narrow belt across north Africa from Morocco eastwards to Iran. Migration stopovers are traditional, and small parties of dotterels pass through each year at these usually inland arable or grassy sites. The winter habitat is semi-desert.Reproduction
It nests in a bare ground scrape and lays two to four eggs.References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
