White-fronted plover facts for kids
Quick facts for kids White-fronted plover |
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| At iSimangaliso Wetland Park, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa | |
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The white-fronted plover (Charadrius marginatus) is a small bird that lives near water. It's a type of shorebird found in Africa and Madagascar. These birds weigh about 45 to 50 grams. They like sandy beaches, muddy areas, and the edges of rivers and lakes.
White-fronted plovers dig small, shallow nests in the ground. They usually lay one to three eggs. These birds often stay with the same partner for many years. They also tend to keep the same home territory. They can live for about 12 years. The white-fronted plover looks a bit like the Kentish plover. It has a white forehead and dark stripes connecting its eyes to its beak.
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Types of White-fronted Plovers
Scientists recognize four or five different types, called subspecies, of the white-fronted plover. These types mostly look different in the color of their neck and chest feathers.
- C. m. arenaceus lives from southern Mozambique to South Africa.
- C. m. marginatus is the main type. It lives from southern Angola to South Africa.
- C. m. mechowi is found in parts of Africa south of the Sahara Desert. This includes Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and northern Mozambique.
- C. m. tenellus lives only on the island of Madagascar.
- C. m. pons is another type, but not all scientists agree it's a separate subspecies.
What Does a White-fronted Plover Look Like?
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An average white-fronted plover weighs about 45 to 50 grams. Male and female birds look a little different.
Adult male plovers have a white forehead and a white stripe above their eyes. They have a dark band across the middle of their head. The rest of their head is sandy grey. Their face is mostly white, with a dark stripe from behind the eye to the ear area. Their back and rump are light greyish-brown.
The top feathers of their tail are black, and the side feathers are white. Their wing feathers are dark brown with white parts. White-fronted plovers also have a pale brownish patch on their upper chest. Their belly is white, sometimes with a light chestnut color. Their eyes are brown, their beak is black, and their legs are pale grey or green.
Adult female plovers look similar to males. However, their dark head band is thinner and sometimes missing. Female wings are also a bit longer than male wings. Young plovers look like adult females but never have the dark head band. Their head has no black color.
Plover Calls and Sounds
White-fronted plovers make gentle sounds like wit, woo-et, twirit, and tirit-tirit. They also say pi-peep.
When a plover is protecting its home, it might make a harsh chiza-chiza sound. This can be followed by a purrr or a squeak. If they visit their eggs before they are all laid, they make a croo sound. When they are sitting on their eggs, they make a short clirrup or clup sound if they are scared. Other alarm calls include kittup and chirrrt.
Adult birds make a sharp krewwwwww sound when they are trying to find a mate. Newly hatched chicks often make a tsick sound to get their parent's attention.
Where White-fronted Plovers Live and Travel
Where They Are Found
The white-fronted plover lives only in Africa south of the Sahara Desert. You can find them from Senegal and Somalia all the way to South Africa. They live along the entire coast of South Africa. They are also found inland near large lakes and rivers. They also live on the island of Madagascar. In Madagascar, they live on all coasts and inland too.
How They Move Around
Some white-fronted plovers stay in one place all year. Others move around during different seasons. Birds living on the coast usually stay put. But they might move to more protected areas during harsh winters. If lakes or shores flood, inland birds might have to move. They often leave their inland homes between December and May, heading to the East coast of South Africa.
Where They Like to Live
These birds mostly live on sandy shores, coastal sand dunes, and river mouths. They also live along rivers and lake shores, and on muddy or rocky coasts. They prefer to build their nests away from the water. They choose open shorelines or exposed sand among dry seaweed. They also nest on sandy shores near both salty and fresh inland rivers and lakes.
How White-fronted Plovers Find Food
White-fronted plovers look for food both day and night. They use a special "run-stop-search" method. This means they run, suddenly stop to peck at something, and then run again. They can pick food from the water's surface. They also catch food by poking their beak shallowly into the ground.
Another way they find food is by "foot-trembling." They vibrate their toes on the ground to make small insects or worms come to the surface. This method has not been seen in the plovers living in Madagascar. They also fly up to catch insects. Sometimes, they eat insects that wash up on shore.
Their main foods include sand flies, grasshoppers, termites, mosquito larvae, and small water creatures. They also eat snails, clams, small crabs, and other tiny crustaceans and worms.
Plovers mostly look for food in the upper part of sandy beaches where the tide goes in and out. They also search along the high water line and in flooded dips in sand dunes during summer. In winter, they search lower on the shore. They often follow the waves, looking for food on the freshly wet sand. They prefer to find food during low tide. But they also look in seaweed piles when the tide is high. In the middle of the day, they often stop eating to clean their feathers.
Some plovers protect their feeding areas all year. Others look for food in groups, sometimes with other bird species like sanderlings and curlew sandpipers.
Plover Behavior and Life Cycle
Reproduction and Nesting
The white-fronted plover usually has one partner for life. They can live for about 12 years, but some live even longer. They are often seen in pairs or small groups. During breeding season, they can form larger groups. For example, a group of 375 birds was once seen in Namibia.
Mates usually stay together for a long time. However, some pairs do separate. Plovers that lose a partner often find a new one without leaving their home area. Staying with one partner might be because there aren't many other choices, or because changing partners is too difficult.
During courtship, male plovers stand tall and take high steps. Females lower their heads. Before choosing a final nest spot, they might make a few shallow dips in the ground.
The white-fronted plover protects its home very well. If another bird enters its area, the plover will puff out its feathers. It will chase the intruder away while making buzzing sounds.
Protecting Their Territories
Breeding pairs might have one home area near the high water mark where they can also find food. Or they might have two separate areas: one for feeding and one for nesting. Nesting areas are about 1.6 hectares (about 4 acres) in size. Nests can be as close as 16.2 meters (about 53 feet) to each other.
The size of these areas usually stays the same year after year. Birds are very loyal to their nesting sites, with about 97% of pairs staying in the same spot. They defend their areas from other plovers and even other bird species like sanderlings and Kittlitz's plovers. They might fly low at intruders, run at them with their head down, or stand in an aggressive way. Some birds don't have their own territory. If they behave normally (like just feeding and then leaving), the territorial birds usually leave them alone.
Building Nests and Laying Eggs
A typical white-fronted plover nest is a small, shallow dip in sand, gravel, or small stones. Sometimes, they line the nest with shell pieces, pebbles, seaweed, or twigs. But most often, the nests are not lined. Nests are usually more than 70 meters (about 230 feet) away from the high water mark. They are often built among beach trash or near plants in the dunes.
The bird makes the dip by pushing its chest into the ground. It slowly turns around while kicking sand backward. Pairs might make more than one dip before choosing one for nesting. This nest-building often happens at the same time as courtship.
They lay 1 to 3 eggs. The average number of eggs can be different in various places. In South Africa, they average 2.05 eggs. In Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi, they average 2.53 eggs. The time they lay eggs also changes depending on the area. They nest all year round on the coast. But inland in Namibia, they only nest from December to January.
Eggs are laid every 2 to 7 days. They are pale cream-colored, pointed ovals. They have small blackish-brown dots and lines. An average egg is about 32.1 x 22.8 millimeters (about 1.26 x 0.9 inches). Before all the eggs are laid, the pair often visits the nest together. Sometimes they stand over the egg. But they don't start sitting on the eggs until the last one is laid. During this time, they make "croo" calls.
Incubating the Eggs
Sitting on the eggs, called incubation, usually starts when all the eggs are laid. This period lasts about 27 to 29 days, but can be up to 33 days. Both male and female birds sit on the nest during the day. If they sense danger, they partly or fully cover the eggs with sand during the day. They only cover the eggs when there's a threat, not during normal breaks. So, scientists think covering eggs helps hide them from predators, rather than keeping them warm. It's thought that the male bird does most of the incubation at night. If a pair loses their eggs, they are very likely to lay new ones.
Parental Care for Chicks
Chicks are ready to fly, or fledge, after about 35 to 38 days. About 28% of hatched chicks survive to fledge. If a predator or danger is near, adult plovers with chicks or eggs about to hatch will try to distract it. They might do a "rodent running" display. This is when the adult runs fast with its head low and tail spread out, looking like a fleeing mouse. They might also pretend to be hurt. This is when the bird runs or crouches on the ground, flapping one or both wings, with its tail partly spread.
Chicks start feeding themselves right after they hatch. However, parents can lead their chicks to feeding areas up to 2.2 kilometers (about 1.4 miles) from the nest.
About 89-92% of adult white-fronted plovers survive each year. These birds live much longer than their relatives found further north.
Protecting the White-fronted Plover
The white-fronted plover is listed as a Least Concern species by the IUCN. This means it's not currently in danger. This is because it lives in a very large area and has a big population. Even though the total number of birds is slowly going down, it's not happening fast enough to be a big worry right now.
The population in Madagascar is estimated to be between 5,000 and 15,000 birds. The total number of white-fronted plovers worldwide is estimated to be between 73,500 and 103,500. Not many nests are successful, but birds can lay eggs multiple times if they lose their first set. However, there isn't enough information to know exactly how the population is changing.
What Threatens White-fronted Plovers?
The biggest danger to the white-fronted plover is losing its home. This happens when wetlands are damaged or destroyed. In Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique, the birds have lost a lot of their inland living areas. This is because dams have changed how rivers flow.
Important wetland areas in southern Africa, like Walvis Bay in Namibia, have been damaged. This is due to wetlands being filled in to build neighborhoods, ports, and roads. In Ghana, erosion of the coast and plans to drain land for development are big threats to the wetlands where these birds breed.
Major reasons why nests are lost in some areas include flooding from high tides. Also, tourists or off-road vehicles driving through breeding sites can disturb the birds.
