- Cursorius cursor
Identification
Photo © by Alok Tewari
Desert National Park, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India, 29 January 2025
Length 19–24 cm (7½-9½ in), wingspan 51–57 cm, weight 100–120 g
Adult:
- Sandy body
- White lower belly
- Black primaries on upperwing
- Black underwings
- Blue-grey nape and crown
- Black eyestripe
- White supercilium
- Long legs
- Downcurved bill
Flight: Black outer wing and underwing
Juvenile: duller than adult, lacking blue-grey crown patch; mantle feathers with dark fringes giving a weakly scaly appearance.
Similar species
Somali Courser overlaps with Cream-coloured in eastern Africa in winter; it differs in being slightly smaller, and the upperparts having a more grey-buff, less yellow-buff, tone. In flight, only the outer half of the wing is black below, the inner wing being light grey below.
Distribution
Breeds from the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, across the deserts of northern Africa and the Middle East to southern Turkmenistan. Most populations (except on the Atlantic islands) are short-distance migrants, wintering south to the Sahel region of Africa from Senegal east to Sudan, and southwest Asia east from Saudi Arabia to northwestern India.
A vagrant north of the breeding range to northwestern Europe, with e.g. 45 records in Britain, eight records in Germany, four records in Denmark, and one record in Ireland.
Taxonomy
Somali Courser was formerly considered conspecific.
Subspecies
There are three subspecies[1][2]:
- C. c. bogolubovi:
- South-eastern Turkey to Iran, Afghanistan, southern Pakistan and north-western India
- C. c. cursor:
- Canary Islands, North Africa, Arabian Peninsula and Socotra Islands
- C. c. exsul:
Habitat
Dry, semi-desert country, bare and flat.
Behaviour
Movement
Runs on the ground. Feet trail in flight. Skims low over the desert.
Breeding
They nest in a ground scrape; 2 eggs are laid.
Diet
The diet includes insects.
Vocalisation
Call: A quiet quett
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2018. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2018. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Gill, F and D Donsker (Eds). 2017. IOC World Bird Names (version 7.1). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/.
- Collins Field Guide 5th Edition
- Collins Bird Guide ISBN 0 00 219728 6
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Cream-coloured Courser. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 25 April 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Cream-coloured_Courser
External Links
GSearch checked for 2020 platform.
