
Photographer: ©
Сергей Дерелиев
- http://www.dereliev-photography.com
L 24-28 cm. Breeding habitat as for Collared Pratincole, but more often found at wet meadows, reedy marshes and in vegetated areas. Summer visitor (Apr-Oct), winters mainly in S Africa. Vagrant to W Europe.
IDENTIFICATION: Very similar to Collared Pratincole, but darker and more uniform upperwing (invariably lacking light trailing edge to inner wing), black underwing (Collared, too, can look black in poor light!), at rest slightly longer legs and on average shorter tail. Adult has less red at base of bill than Collared and often slightly darker lores and forehead.
VOICE: Similar to Collared Pratincole’s but slightly lower-pitched and harder and drier (‘knocking’), often ‘kettek’, ‘ke-ti-tik’ or ‘kett’. Alarm is dry, hard, rolling ‘tr-r-rt’.