Scientific name: Charadrius pecuarius
In breeding plumage it has a grey-brown back, crown, and wings, an orange breast shading to white on the lower belly, and long dark grey legs. The forehead and throat are white, with black lores and a black frontal bar, the latter extending as a stripe down the sides of the neck and around the hind neck.
In winter, the adults lose the distinctive face pattern and resemble Kentish plovers, but they are smaller, longer-legged and longer-billed. They have less uniform upperparts than Kentish, and always show a pink or orange breast colouration. Juvenile Kittlitz’s plovers are similar to winter adults, but the underpart colour is often restricted to just a narrow gorget. In flight, the primary flight feathers are dark with a short white wing bar.
Generally they prefer open dry mudflats with short grass, usually close to water. It also occupies estuaries, natural pans, salt-marshes, flood plains and commercial salt pans, occasionally moving to airfields, golf courses, overgrazed pastures and ploughed fields
The Kittlitz’s plover forages for food on open dry mud and short grass, usually close to water. It mainly eats small invertebrates, especially beetles, foraging by day and night using the typical run-stop-search technique of plover.
