Northern Ringed Plover
| Northern Ringed Plover | ||||||||||
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Norway plover ( Pluvialis dominica ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Pluvialis dominica | ||||||||||
| ( Statius Müller , 1776) |
The American Golden Plover ( Pluvialis dominica ), and Little Golden Plover , American Golden Plover and prairie golden plover , belongs within the order of Regenpfeiferartigen the family of Plover . Occasionally the Siberian golden plover is considered to be its subspecies .
The Northern Ringed Plover is a regular migrant and guest bird in Europe, which is especially observed in Great Britain. In Central Europe, however, it is extremely rare.
features
The common ringed plover has a lapwing-like build . The neck is of medium length and the head is round and small. Due to the semi-upright posture, which is most pronounced in this golden plover species, the back drops steeply. The beak is short, thin and slightly thickened at the end. The bird has large black eyes that are surrounded by a featherless lid ring. The bird's feet are relatively long and each has three short toes. A fourth, backward-facing, is absent. Its wings are initially wide, but the hand wings taper to a point. Their underside is gray like the Siberian golden plover. Its tail is wedge-shaped.
In the brood dress the belly, the chest, the front neck area and the face are black. Starting at the forehead and extending to the chest, a white band runs along the black plumage parts. It widens towards the bottom. The rest of the plumage is spotted black on a gold-gray to gray background. These are larger on the wings. The wings of the hand are colored slate-gray to gray-brown, the sides of the tail - and underside - are gold-gray and striped with black. In the breeding plumage, the Little Golden Plover differs from other golden plovers in that its tail is also black. In addition, the white band is much shorter.
When young, the bird is predominantly gray-brown in color. The wings and the back are dark gray and covered with black spots like in the brood dress. The chest and neck show light, gray-brown and faded longitudinal stripes. The belly is almost white in color, except for a few light gray speckles. The upper half of the bird's head is dark gray, at eye level there is also a dark gray, horizontal band that makes a sharp bend down behind the eyes. There is a light band between these two parts. The youth dress is colored like the plain dress , only a little darker and not so heavily striped on the chest.
The beak and legs are slate gray. The little golden plover reaches a body length of 25 centimeters.
Way of life
The Little Ringed Plover is a migratory bird and can fly well. He shouts high, something like klu-i . It eats insects , worms (especially seaweed worms ), crustaceans , other invertebrates and berries . He walks quickly back and forth at watering holes on meadows and beaches, pecking or poking in the mud for food.
It breeds in drier areas of the grassland on an elevated spot to see enemies in time. The nest is a simple, only slightly padded floor hollow. In spring the female lays two to three eggs with black spots on a dirty white background. Both sexes incubate the clutch for about 25 days. The young are fleeing nests and leave the nest immediately after hatching. They are initially clothed with thick down plumage. After 30 days, they leave their parents.
Habitat and Distribution
The breeding areas are in Northern Canada and Alaska . There he inhabits tundra and grasslands . It is often found near bodies of water. It is listed as a least concern in the IUCN redlist .
The northern plover migrates south every autumn to Argentina , where it hibernates. He flies long distances without eating or drinking. His migration route leads over the USA , the Caribbean or the western Atlantic Ocean and then over the South American mainland. It flies more rarely over Central America . The birds move back to their breeding grounds from January to April. Large rest areas are z. B. in Illinois . On its migration routes, it sometimes flies to western Africa, east Asia , Europe and even as far as Australia and New Zealand . It has one of the longest migration routes of all birds.
supporting documents
literature
- Colin Harrison and Alan Greensmith: Birds. Dorling Kindersley Limited, London 1993, ISBN 3-473-46076-1
- David Burnie: Animals the Great Picture Encyclopedia. Dorling Kindersley Verlag GmbH, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-8310-0202-9
Web links
- Avibase
- Pluvialis dominica inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2013.
Single receipts
- ↑ Hans-Günther Bauer, Einhard Bezzel and Wolfgang Fiedler (eds.): The compendium of birds in Central Europe: Everything about biology, endangerment and protection. Volume 1: Nonpasseriformes - non-sparrow birds , Aula-Verlag Wiebelsheim, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-89104-647-2 , p. 431