Birds
Kentish Plover
Charadrius alexandrinus · Prundărar de sărătură
A small, pale plover of salty shores and lagoons, breeding in Dobrogea and the Bărăgan Plain.
At a glance
- Status in Romania
- Summer visitor
- Habitat
- Wetland
- Activity
- Morning · Daytime · Evening
- Diet
- Mainly invertebrates — small crustaceans, molluscs, worms and insects — taken from muddy water edges.
- Conservation status
- Least Concern (IUCN)
- Photography difficulty
- Moderate
Photograph this species
- Best time / activity
- Morning · Daytime · Evening
- Photography difficulty
- Moderate
- Where to look
- Saline lagoons and coastal flats in Dobrogea during the breeding and passage seasons.
Photography Guide
Practical starting points based on the species’ behaviour and habitat, not fixed rules.
- Where and how to look
- Saline lagoons and coastal flats in Dobrogea during the breeding and passage seasons.
- Best time / activity
- Morning · Daytime · Evening
- Behaviour to anticipate
- Short runs and sudden stops along the waterline.
- Photography difficulty
- Moderate
- Starting shutter speed
- 1/2000 sec to freeze the fast runs.
- Fieldcraft
- Lie low at the edge of the flat and let the birds work along the shore towards you.
- Ethics
- Nests are scrapes on open ground and almost invisible — watch every step on nesting flats.
Identification
Small shorebird, white below and grey above, with a white collar, black markings on the chest sides and a black eye-stripe; breeding males have a variably rufous crown. Length 15–17.5 cm.
Habitat
Salt-marshes, lagoon and saline-water shores, temporary-water margins and coastal flats.
Distribution
Breeds in Dobrogea and the Bărăgan Plain.
Approximate range in Romania
Diet
Mainly invertebrates — small crustaceans, molluscs, worms and insects — taken from muddy water edges.
Behaviour
Runs in short bursts along the water's edge, stopping to pick prey from the surface.
Seasonality in Romania
Breeds in Romania and is present only during the breeding and passage seasons. Winters in the northern half of Africa, southern Asia and parts of southern Europe, so it is absent from Romania in winter.
Monthly presence has not yet been source-verified.
Breeding
Nests on open salty flats and shores.