A small, dainty shorebird/wader known for its distinctive yellow eye-ring, black bill, and black chest-band, pale (creamy-brown/pinkish) or yellowish legs.
In flight will give out a distinctive peau call, and will show plain brown wings, no prominent white wing-stripe of the much rarer Common Ringed Plover, which is also a migrant to West Malaysia.
It prefers bare, stony or harder ground near water including bund roads on paddy fields, gravel pits and quarries, river stones, reservoirs, industrial sites and landfills.
Its foragng behaviour includes runs, stops, pecks, uses foot-trembling; eats insects, worms, crustaceans in mud/bare ground.
It is usually less gregarious than other small plovers; often in small groups of less than ten.
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/common-ringed-plover-charadrius-hiaticula
In Seberang Perai, it is fairly common but not wide spread in paddy fields, landfills, but less so at coastal mudflats. Numbers seems to have dropped in Seberang, with counts of less that fifty per district.
At Teluk Air Tawar – Kuala Muda: a migrant, found more on the paddy fields and pond edges than on the open mudflats. It was recorded during the MNS Penang survey of October 2024 to March 2026. Look for it from August to April, in the largest numbers from October to February. See When to see shorebirds at Teluk Air Tawar – Kuala Muda.
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