Kentish Plover

The Kentish Plover is resident all year but there are also both summer and winter migrant birds arriving. The Plover breeds on the Island and is very local, requiring a specific habitat of stony beaches.

A good place to see them is at Albufereta on the beach side of the road where they breed on the shingle beaches during the spring in company with Little Ringed Plovers. They can be seen in smaller numbers at Albufera.

Another very good site is on the south coast at Cap de Ses Salines where several pairs breed along the rocky coast and also at Saobrar de Campos where it is present all year round in good numbers.

Technical description

Kentish Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) is a small wader in the plover bird family. Despite its name, this species no longer breeds in Kent, or even Great Britain. The Kentish plover is 15–17 cm long. It is smaller, paler, longer-legged and thinner-billed than the ringed plover. Its breast band is never complete and usually just appears as dark lateral patches on the sides of the breast. The Kentish plover’s upperparts are greyish brown and the underparts white in all plumages. The breast markings are black in summer adults, otherwise brown. Breeding males of some races have a black forehead bar and a black mask through the eye. The legs are black. In flight, the flight feathers are blackish with a strong white wing bar. The flight call is a sharp bip.