Place: Hagdale Horse Mill, Unst, Shetland Islands
Date: 16 June 2018.
If you remember certain nature programmes showing a bird pretending to be injured to lure a would-be predator away from the nest, that’s what’s happening here: the ringed plover was writhing on the ground with an outstretched wing, then sat up, looking if I took the bait, and continued to play-act until I was sufficiently far away from its nest.
[Charadrius hiaticula, Family Charadriidae, Order Charadriiformes, Wikipedia Entry: Common ringed plover]
The sound of the ringed plover (borrowed from the Xeno-Canto website, recordist Marco Dragonetti)
Distribution and sightings of the ringed plover across the British Isles (borrowed and modified from the Bird Atlas Mapstore).
Marnix's Bird Gallery 