From Opus

Photo by Mugil
Location: Ulcinj, Montenegro (Adriatic coast)

Glareola pratincola

[edit] Identification

24–28 cm

• Brown head, back and wings
• Buff chin and throat (bordered in summer by a thin black line)
• Dark wing tips with whitish trailing edges
• Chestnut underwings

Summer bird in flight
Photo by sdaly
Barbate, Southern Spain, June 2005

• White belly and rump
• Short black-tipped red bill
• Short black legs
• Long forked tail
  

Juvenile: mottled above and lacks the black line.

[edit] Similar Species

Black-winged Pratincole is darker overall and lacks the light trailing edge on the wings; the underwing is black.

Oriental Pratincole

[edit] Distribution

Southern Palearctic and tropical Africa. Europe, southwest Asia and Africa.
Vagrant to Northern Europe; annual in Britain and Ireland.

Juvenile Photo by ody Kitrous Marshes, Greece, July 2008

Autumn bird in flight Photo by AJDH Badaan Farm, Bahrain, September 2008

[edit] Taxonomy

[edit] Subspecies¹

• G. p. pratincola - southern Europe to Pakistan; winters sub-Saharan Africa north of 5°N
• G. p. erlangeri - Coastal plains of southern Somalia and northern Kenya
• G. p. fuelleborni - Senegal to southern Kenya, Zaire, Namibia and eastern South Africa

[edit] Habitat

Near water. Open country; mud flats with low vegetation. Also canals, wet meadows and saltpans.

[edit] Behaviour

Often crepuscular.

[edit] Flight

Rather tern-like when hawking for insects. Flight outline also recalls large hirundine.

[edit] Diet

The diet includes insects which are usually aerially hawked but also feeds on the ground.

[edit] Breeding

Breeds colonially. Two to four eggs are laid in a ground scrape.

[edit] Vocalisation

Call: hard kyik or kittik

[edit] References

1. Clements, JF. 2008. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2008. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist.
2. Wikipedia
3. Collins Pocket Guide to British Birds 1966
4. Collins Field Guide 5th Edition
5. Collins Bird Guide ISBN 0 00 219728 6

[edit] External Links