Erythristic plumage in Little Ringed Plovers

The Guadalhorce hosts quite a few Little Ringed Plovers now that the breeding season is over, and many are moulting away happily. Yesterday, 23 August, along with Joan Carles, I found 2 birds, identically marked, whose plumage was abnormally coloured, and this morning, 23 August, one (the bird photographed) was still present. While the photos are far from good because of dustance and are therefore much enlarged, they do give some idea of what they were like. There is no doubt, after a prolonged examination, that they are juvenile Little Ringed Plovers.

These photos are copied, the top in each case is the untouched original, the lower one has been given a 3 point touch to accentuate the contrast and 3 points less to reduce shine in each case. This treatment actually brings the bird closer to the actual white parts body and head colour but still understates it.


Both birds stood out like the proverbial sore thumb amongst the normal plumaged LRPs which can be seen in the foreground in the left hand photos.

The white head and body was changed to a pale to medium reddish ochre colour. This was notable on the body, especially the belly area, and on the forehead and neck ring, being palest to off-white on the rear of the neck and tail feathers. The back colour was visibly sandier in tone than in more normally plumaged birds and the legs somewhat paler and more orange.

Discussing these odd birds with Antonio Miguel Pérez, we came to the conclusion that we could discount some sort of staining for the following reasons: There were two identically plumaged birds present on Saturday and that as the aberrant colouration was identical and remarkably even and not patchy we could very probably rule out the staining factor.The same feature of two identical juvenile birds present strongly suggests that this aberrant reddish plumage is a genetic feature, inherited from parents which must be carrying the same rare recessive gene.

This abnormal, and probably very rare, reddish plumage is erythristic comes from an excess of red pigmentation in the feathers and the noun is erythrism. (Aren't I just a little mine of information? Fortunately Norberto Morán told me 'cause I hadn't got a clue either!)

More photos may be forthcoming and will be added if they do. Comments and suggestions will be very welcome!