Kittlitz's Plover

Kittlitz's plover is a small shorebird weighing between 35-40 grams. Both male and female have a black bill, dark brown eyes with black eyelids and black legs, although sometimes the legs can appear greenish or grey. During the breeding season, the male has a white forehead, a blackish bar followed by a narrow white bar on the forecrown, whereas the rest of the crown is brown with sandy tips to the feathers. A black stripe - separated from the crown by a white superciliary stripe - runs from the bill through the eye and extends to the side of the neck forming a collar across the upper mantle. The mantle is dark grey-brown, the other upperparts are sooty brown with feathers having sandy rufous margins. The face, the chin and the upper throat are white and the rest of the underparts are yellowish, the belly is pale. Kittlitz's Plover has blackish central tail feathers that get continuously lighter towards the side of the tail; the outer one or two pairs are completely white. The female plumage is similar to the male's, only the black band across the forecrown is narrower. The non-breeding plumage does not differ much from the breeding one, the eye stripe is browner, the frontal bar is missing and the underparts are a lot paler. In general, adult wing length lies between 100–110 mm, adult bill length between 15–23 mm and adult tarsus length between 26–33 mm. Juvenile Kittlitz's plovers appear similar to adults, however the black face marks are lacking, the upperparts are brown, the hindneck collar is buff and the underparts are white.