Common Ringed Plover of the UK and Ireland
The Common Ringed Plover (charadrius hiaticula) is small, plump and brightly patterned wading bird with short legs that lives along the coasts of Britain and Ireland. It is also known as the Great Ringed Plover, the sand lark (Scotland) and the Ringed Plover.
Males and females are alike. The upper-parts are grey and the underparts are white. There are black bands across the neck and forehead and a black mask over its eyes. The short bill is orange with a black tip. The short legs are orange-yellow. A broad white wing-stripe is conspicuous when flying. Immature birds have an incomplete breast band, a dark bill and are duller in colour. It is considered to be one of the prettiest waders in Britain and Ireland.
The Common Ringed Plover belongs to the Charadriidae (or Plover) family of bird that includes its cousin, the Lapwing. Adults start breeding when they are 1 year old. The average lifespan of the Common Ringed Plover is 5 years.
Ringed Plovers, who are sociable birds, inhabit open, bare ground or places with little vegetation that includes sandy or shingle beaches, sandbanks, salt marshes and mud-flats in estuaries. Fewer are found inland where they may be seen around bare arable fields, short grassland (pastures), river banks, the shores of lakes and reservoirs, flooded fields and gravel pits. They are often found in small flocks at high tide usually with other waders such as Dunlins.
Breeding takes place on sand or shingle beaches, near sand or inland on arable fields with low vegetation, gravel pits etc. They have moving inland to breed in England and Wales since the 1980s possibly because of the increase in man-made water-bodies (gravel pits, reservoirs etc). Irish Ringed Plovers have also moved to inland bogs in the midlands to breed.
Their diet includes worms (sand and earthworms), shellfish, small crustaceans (shrimps), insects and other invertebrates. Food is picked from bare, flat surfaces such as sandy or muddy shorelines and pastures with short vegetation.
They forage for food by using a run-and-pause method when dash short distances and then stop to pick up titbits. They find worms in the kicking the sand with rapid foot movements or tapping the ground quickly which mimicks raindrops. Foraging takes place both in the day and night.
Ringed Plovers are resident birds who may be seen on all coasts of Britain and Ireland throughout the year. Small numbers are also found inland. Resident birds in Ireland do not migrate. Some from Britain fly south to winter in Europe. A few from Scotland winter in Ireland.
The stronghold of these birds in Britain is "East Anglia’s extensive sandy and shingle beaches between the Thames and the Humber" (Norfolk Biodiversity). They are present in on most coasts of Ireland but there are fewer in the north and south-east.
Resident birds are joined in the autumn by internationally important wintering birds from Scandinavia and Europe. Wintering birds from Canada, Greenland, Iceland and the Baltic (Fennoscandia) pass over on their way to southern locations (West Africa). Some from Europe and the Baltic remain in Britain and Ireland for the winter. Icelandic birds fly over Britain and Ireland to wintering from France south to North Africa. Most autumn migrations take place between August and September and return in the spring between March and May.
"Populations of Ringed Plovers are well-known for their leap-frog migration in which northern breeding populations leap-frog their more southerly-breeding conspecifics on autumn migration and winter further south..why Ringed Plovers have a leap-frog migration pattern is not known..." (Research Gate - page 1).
Wintering and migrating birds inhabit the same areas as resident birds (sand or shingle beaches, sandbanks, mudflats, salt marshes, flooded fields etc). They roost together in flocks near their feeding sites along the shore, sandbanks, bare arable fields and in short vegetation.
Breeding usually takes place between April and July. Pairs nest either singly or small groups. The nest built on the ground on sandy or shingle beaches and mudflats on the coast as well as inland on riverbanks and gravel pits.
Some of the most important breeding areas in Britain are the wide, open sand flats which are known as the Machair in the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, the River Twai in Wales ( River Twai), Cemlyn Nature Reserve in Anglesey (Wales), Tices Meadow in Surrey (Birdwatching), Lough Corrib in Galway and Dublin Bay in Ireland. A quarter of the UK’s breeding Ringed Plover nest within the Outer Hebrides in Scotland.
The nest is a slight depression in the ground lined with grass and pebbles. Three to four eggs are laid between April and June which are yellowish in colour, spotted with dark brown. Eggs hatch after 21 to 27 days and the young are fledged after 24 days. Common Ringed Plovers share incubation of the eggs with males incubating the eggs at night (Bio One). Both parents look after the young and can rear 2 or 3 or 3 broods a year.
Intruders near the nest are lured away by the adult birds feigning an injured wing and flying off once the intruder is a distance from the nest.
The global population is not considered to be Vulnerable by conservationist groups (such as Birdlife International) due to the wide range of these birds (Europe, Asia, Africa, North America the Arctic etc). The global population is described as decreasing. The European population is considered Secure.
The Ringed Plover is classified as of Least Concern by IUCN.
The UK population declined 31% between 2000 and 2009 (RSPB) and were an amber listed species of bird. It was amber listed in Britain because of a moderate decline of 25% to 50% of in the breeding population over 25 years. The Ringed Plover was upgraded to a red listed species of bird in Britain in 2010.
The British Trust for Ornithology reported a decline in the Common Ringed Plover population of 37% in Britain between 1984 and 2007, with the greatest declines in inland areas. Reasons given for the decline are predation by hedgehogs (Wader Tales) and human disturbance (usage of beaches when nesting) ( BTO). There has also been a decline in the wintering population.
The Common Ringed Plover is an amber listed species of bird in Ireland. Birdwatch reported a decline of 23% between 1972 and 2013 ( Irish Examiner).
Reasons given for the decline include oil pollution, avain botulism, human disturbance (tourism on the coast (Springer), construction projects), drainage of their wetland habitat (agriculture changes), overgrown vegetation of their open habitats, an increase in their natural predators (foxes, American mink etc) and climate change ( rising sea level causing loss of nest because of tidal flooding).
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