For today's species spotlight I have chosen one of our commonest and most easily seen waders - if you live near the coast, that is. It's the Ringed Plover (or Common Ringed Plover) (Charadrius hiaticula). If you go to Redcar Beach on a winter's day and stand in one place, near the water's edge for a little while, you will very likely see several Ringed Plovers flying along the shore, or even landing quite close to you.
They are in the family Charadriidae (usually called the Plover family) which includes all the plovers, lapwings and dotterels. The English name for this member of the family comes from the dark neck-ring which the adults have. This is black during the breeding season and browny grey during the winter. Ringed Plovers are usually found right on the coast, unlike their less common cousin, the Little Ringed Plover, which likes to nest on island in inland lakes and pools, and which, unlike the Ringed Plover, migrates to Africa in the winter.
Ringed Plovers don't built a nest but instead make a hollow in sand or shingle where they rely on cryptic colouration (i.e. camouflage) of themselves, their eggs and their chicks, to stop predators finding them. As with many members of the plover family, if a potential predator does get too near to the nest, the adults will do a distraction display, pretending to be injured so that the predator follows them and doesn't see the eggs or chicks, until they have got far enough away from the nest, at which point they fly off and wait until the potential threat is gone before returning to the nest.
The photo below was taken today at the end of the breakwater at South Gare, a couple of hours before high tide. It shows an adult (probably a male I think, judging by the amount of jet black colour on the face) in summer plumage.
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