Habitat
Sandy shores and coastal dunes, rocky shores, coastal and inland mudflats, salt-pans, estuaries, saline and brackish lagoons, and offshore islands. Also sandy shores of large inland rivers and lakes, both fresh water and alkaline.
Food
Insects icluding sandflies, grasshoppers, termites, mosquito pupae and fairy shrimp larvae, gastropods, bivalves, bivalve siphons, crabs and other small crustaceans, isopods and worms.
White-fronted Plover (Charadrius marginatus) [XC521372]
by Frank Lambert from Overberg DC, Overberg District Municipality, Western Cape, South Africa (call)
White-fronted Plover (Charadrius marginatus) [XC623421]
by Tim Cockcroft from Antsiranana Urban, Antsiranana Province, Madagascar (flight call)
Nest
A shallow scrape in the sand, on dunes, sandbars, usually more than 70 m above the high water mark, and occasionally in quarries or on roadside gravel.
Subspecies
Forms superspecies with Javan Plover (Charadrius javanicus), Kentish Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) and Red-capped Plover (Charadrius ruficapillus). All have on occasion been considered conspecific.
Some authors consider population from Sudan and Ethiopia to eastern Natal as belonging to subspecies tenellus. Other proposed subspecies: hesperius (western Africa to Central African Republic); nigirius (R Niger); spatzi (Rio de Oro); and pons (southern Somalia); but evidence too scanty to support recognition of these possible forms.
The following 4 subspecies are recognised:
mechowi (Cabanis, 1884) - Locally in Africa south of Sahara to northern Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe and northern Mozambique.
marginatus Vieillot, 1818 - Southern Angola to south-western Cape.
arenaceus Clancey, 1971 - Southern Mozambique to south-western Cape.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet