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5,236 Calls Revealed 12 Call Types in Breeding Adult Kentish Plovers

Breeding-plumage Kentish Plover standing beside shallow water
Research · Behaviour

Adult Kentish plovers (Anarhynchus alexandrinus) used a diverse vocal repertoire during breeding on the west coast of South Korea, according to a study published online in February 2026. Researchers analysed 5,236 recorded calls from one breeding season and classified them using both their acoustic structure and the behaviour occurring when the birds called.

Twelve call types covered several breeding contexts

The analysis identified 12 call types used across several broad contexts: affiliative communication such as pair contact, nest relief and calls between parents and chicks; aggression and territorial encounters; vigilance and alarm; advertising; distraction displays; and escape flight.

Spectrograms — visual representations of how sound frequency changes through time — allowed the researchers to quantify differences in features such as call duration and frequency structure. Behavioural observations then showed how those acoustic types were used across different contexts, clarifying that individual call types could serve more than one behavioural context.

The study provides a more comprehensive description of the repertoire and its behavioural contexts than earlier descriptive work. The authors therefore describe adult Kentish plover vocalisations as a context-dependent communication system spanning several parts of the breeding cycle, rather than a small set of calls with one fixed function each. The study provides a standardized reference for future comparisons of vocal communication in Anarhynchus plovers.

Sources and image credit

  1. Lee, D.-Y., Lee, J.-H., Kim, W.-Y., Oh, S.-J., & Sung, H.-C. (2026). Breeding calls of adult Kentish Plovers (Anarhynchus alexandrinus) in Korea: a spectrographic and quantitative reevaluation, with vocal context and function. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology. https://doi.org/10.1080/15594491.2026.2612660Primary peer-reviewed article published online 10 February 2026. The researchers analysed 5,236 adult Kentish Plover calls recorded during one breeding season on the west coast of South Korea and classified them into 12 call types associated with multiple breeding and threat-related contexts.

Image: Tisha Mukherjee / Wikimedia Commons — wild breeding-plumage Kentish plover (Anarhynchus alexandrinus) at Bakkhali, West Bengal, India, photographed 16 February 2026. Representative species photograph, not a bird from the South Korean study; cropped to 16:9. · CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · Source

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