- Pluvianellus socialis
Identification
Size: 8 in. Head and upper parts are gray. Throat and cheeks whitish. Neck and chest grayish with brownish tint. Abdomen and under tail coverts white. Primaries and rectrices blackish. Black bill. Pink legs. Red eyes.
Distribution
Chile Magallanes and Tierra del Fuego
Taxonomy
Habitat
Edges of brackish lakes and lagoons, estuaries and coastal zones.
Behaviour
Since they live in lagoons and lake edges, and in winter also in estuaries and coastal zones, it can be very difficult to see it. They walk slowly, pecking and pushing the little stones and algae that finds in their way, and eating the tiny crustaceans of lagoons, lakes or rivers. Its flight is rapid,and broken, being difficult to follow it with sight, and flyng a great distance before descending again.
The first reference of a nest was in November of 1952, nest found to the edge of a lake in Estancia Gente Grande, in the northwest zone of Tierra del Fuego. The nest, a depression on sandy ground, had two eggs that was confused easily with the rounded stones of the sector. In following years were found other nestfuls. The eggs are between smoke gray and pale smoke gray, with numerous dusky spots very fine more concentrated toward the obtuse pole. Average size of 34 x 25 mms. app. Both parents incubate them and care for the nestlings. However, when the food is scarce, the weakest suckling, generally the second, tend to die.
Though this species is not seen threatened, is calculated that there are no more than 1.500 birds.
