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Dotterel – Charadrius morinellus

Dotterel – Charadrius morinellus
is a brown and black streaked bird with a broad white eye-stripe and an orange-red chest band when in breeding plumage. The female is more colourful than the male. The bird is tame and unsuspecting and the term “dotterel” has been applied contemptuously to mean an old fool.

The dotterel is a migratory species, moving northward in spring and southward in autumn. It breeds in the Arctic tundra of northern Eurasia, from Norway to eastern Siberia, and on suitable mountain plateaus such as the Scottish highlands and the Alps. It nests in a bare scrape on the ground and lays two to four eggs. The male does the incubation and rears the chicks, the female having gone off to find another male and lay another clutch of eggs.

This species is migratory, wintering in a narrow belt across north Africa from Morocco eastwards to Iran. Migration stopovers are traditional, and small parties (trips) of dotterels pass through each year at these usually inland arable or grassy sites. The winter habitat is semi-desert. The Eurasian dotterel is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies. The male dotterel generally is responsible for incubation and looks after the chicks. In most cases the cock dotterel successfully prevents other males from getting his mate and fertilizing her eggs. He usually rears chicks that he has fathered and only 4.6% (2/44) of chicks were not the genetic offspring of the caring male, corresponding to 9.1% (2/22) broods affected.

It sounds like this
Recording by Rob van Bemmelen from Xeno canto