Appearance:

Long-legged and compact plover with short rear-end and thin, black bill. Breast-band (or rather breast patches) usually incomplete and broken, and narrow. Leaves an overall pale impression compared to congeners. The white forehead in adults reaches all the way to the bill. Breeding male with rufous neck patch, distinct black facial markings and black breast-band. Female more diffusely coloured in brown, with slightly darker breast-band. Immature even duller. Tal shorter than Ringed Plover with substantially more white on edges. Legs darker than congeners (blackish when breeding), but may be greenish in immature birds. Can be identified by profile alone with some experience, by combination of long legs, short and compact body and flat forehead. Lifts legs well clear of ground when running, giving it's rapid gait a bicycling feel.

Sound:

Contact calls more frequently heard than song, with two distinct calls. A short and soft ascending whistle resembling chiff-chaff is often heard from the ground, and a hard and rolling "prrrrt" if flushed (or just a short "tip"). Song a hard and rolling sequence resembling Dunlin song, but less nasal and more pulsating.

Song:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Appearance:

Small and agile gull with all black wing-tips, black legs (adults) and yellow bill. Area close to wing-tips much paler than rest of wings, and often visible at surprisingly long range (more so than the black tips). Adult winter with grey neck and black half-collar. Juveniles with black zig-zag pattern to wings, resembling pattern seen in Little Gull, Ross's Gull and Sabine's Gull. Differs from those in; no dark bar on secondaries, underparts of wing white, back grey, black on primaries reaches wing-tip. Flight action different from larger gulls; fast, stiff wing-beats and elegant maneuvering even in strong winds.

Sound:

Highly vocal at breeding ground. A mewing "kitti-wake", with the pitch rising on the second drawn out syllable, and then falling. Generally silent elsewhere, except when squabbling over food.

Contact call:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Sounds:Recorded by Stein Ø. Nilsen,http://www.xeno-canto.org ,CC license