This large squat dotterel has a large head, a heavy black bill with a slightly upturned tip and proportionately short olive-grey legs. The breeding adult has brown upper parts, finely streaked dark brown and whitish feather edges and pale orange-buff to rich rufous underparts. The non-breeding adult has pale grey-brown upper parts with broad whitish feather edges and the underparts are white with an obscure pale grey-brown breast band often restricted to just the shoulders. The call, often accompanied by head bobbing, is a penetrating 'chrp', 'trrt' or 'prrp' and a high pitched 'pweep' when disturbed.

The diet consists mainly of aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates, small fish, crabs, sandhoppers, insects, spiders and earthworms.

There are two subspecies, the larger more boldly coloured Southern NZ Dotterel (obscurus) which breeds on Stewart Island (under 300 left) and the smaller Northern NZ Dotterel (aquilonius) which breeds in Northland, Auckland, the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne and Northern Hawke’s Bay and some off shore islands (c 2200 birds in 2011).

Northern NZ dotterel breed on sandspits, at stream mouths, on beaches, shellbanks, sandbanks and low dunes. The nest, a scrape in the sand, with little or no lining, is often near a marker such as a piece of driftwood, seaweed or a clump of vegetation. The clutch of 2-3 pale, olive to buff-brown eggs with dark brown blotches is laid from August onwards. Both sexes incubate for 28-32 days, females mostly by day and males mostly at night.  The fledgling period is 6-7 weeks and the juveniles wander for about 18 months. They usually breed in their second year.

Breeding birds are often disturbed by humans, their dogs, vehicles and stock, which crush eggs and chicks. Stoats, feral cats, hedgehogs and black-backed gulls also predate both eggs and chicks. Changing habitat has also caused a decline in breeding sites, but both subspecies have responded to protective management and have increased in number.

Northern NZ dotterel in the past occasionally bred on the reef of Tiritiri Matangi but not in recent years. In the 2003/2004 breeding season there were regular sightings on a NZ dotterel but no evidence of breeding.

Learn more about the New Zealand dotterel at New Zealand Birds Online.

Photography by: Max McRae © (top)and by Dr Kerry Rodgers © (bottom)
References: Heather, B.D.; Robertson, H.A. 2000 The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand. Auckland, Viking.
Moon, G The Reed Field Guide to New Zealand Birds.