The Kentish plover (Anarhynchus alexandrinus) is a small wader (40–44 g (1.4–1.6 oz)) of the family Charadriidae that breeds on the shores of saline lakes, lagoons, and coasts, populating sand dunes, marshes, semi-arid desert, and tundra.

[4] The Kentish plover has a large geographical distribution, ranging from latitudes of 10º to 55º, occupying North Africa, both mainland, such as Senegal, and island, such as the Cape Verde archipelago, Central Asia, for example alkaline lakes in China, and Europe, including small populations in Spain and Austria.

[7] Kentish plovers are ground-nesting birds, often with a preference for low, open, moist nesting sites away from thick vegetation and human activity.

They use a number of materials to build their nests, mainly consisting of shells, pebbles, grass and leaves in a small scrape in the ground.

[10][11] The Kentish plover was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Charadrius alexandrinus.

[12][13] Linnaeus based his account on the description of a bird from Egypt by the Swedish naturalist Fredrik Hasselqvist that had been published in 1757.

[18] In 2023 it was proposed that the subspecies seebohmi of southern India and Sri Lanka should be elevated to full species status.

During the breeding season, males have a black horizontal head bar, two incomplete dark breast-bands on each side of their breast, black ear coverts and a rufous nape and crown (although there is some variation between breeding populations), whereas the females are paler in these areas, without the dark markings.

The breeding area continues along the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain in the Middle East.

The breeding season of Kentish plovers lasts on average between 2 and 5 months and varies in the time of year dependent on the particular population.

Courtship displays include active gestures such as flat running, building nest scrapes (small shallow cavities in the ground that are later built into nests), and fighting/running to defend a breeding territory (mainly by males) [33] Kentish plovers inhabit sandy areas or salt-marshes in close proximity to water.

[35] When approached by a predator, chicks usually try to find a spot where they can hide, crouch down and stay motionless to remain unseen.

They are ground-nesting birds that lay their eggs in small shallow scrapes prepared by the male during courtship on the bare ground.

Selection of the breeding ground is essential for the survival of nests and broods; nests are placed near the water on bare earth or in sparse vegetation; often on slightly elevated sites in order to have a good view of the surroundings to spot predators from a distance or near small bushes, plants or grass clusters,[36] where the eggs are partly sheltered from predators.

To compensate for the resulting lack of presence and increased predation risk, they use nest materials to cover and hence camouflage the eggs and keep them insulated.

[40] Female Kentish plovers usually lose mass during the day, which is unexpected since they get relieved by the males for a variable amount of time.

The non-deserting parent can continue to brood their chicks up to 80% of the time for over 20 days after hatching, as precocial young are vulnerable and exposed to external temperatures.

If the parent bird feels that the eggs or chicks are under attack, then it will feign injury in order to divert attention towards itself.

[46][47] Their main source of food consists of miniature aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates such as insects and their larvae (e.g. beetles, grasshoppers or flies), molluscs, crustaceans, spiders and marine worms.

[46] They are obligate visual foragers and often feed at the shoreline of lakes, lagoons or ponds in invertebrate-rich moist-soil areas.

[50] At night, their ability of finding prey might be restricted, but plovers have been shown to have a good nocturnal vision due to their large eyes and enhanced retinal visual sensitivity,.

Human activity such as tourists walking through protected areas, pollution, unsustainable harvesting and urbanisation can destroy nesting sites.

Breeding birds respond to human disturbance disproportionately when dogs are present,[55] as these situations are interpreted in a context of greater risk of predation.

[56] Natural predators are also a problem, as many of these predators appear to thrive unnaturally well in the presence of plover breeding grounds, such as the brown-necked raven (Corvus ruficollis) in Maio, Cape Verde, the White-tailed Mongoose (Ichneumia albicauda) in Saudi Arabia, and the Grey Monitors (Varanus griseus) in Al-Wathba Wetland Reserve.