Pin-Tailed Sandgrouse

• GeneralIt soaks its belly feathers in water to carry it to its chicks kilometres away.
• Like the black-bellied sandgrouse, the male carries water to the chicks by soaking his belly feathers and flying tens of kilometres back to the nest: the chicks drink straight from his plumage.
• Its flocks come to drink at the same pools and at the same time every day, and that predictability has made the few remaining steppe watering points critical places for its conservation.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Cereal steppe, saline plains, fallow land and open treeless moorland

Birth weight

Precocial: born covered in down and leaves the nest within a few hours

Size at birth

Precocial: born covered in down and leaves the nest within a few hours

Sexual maturity

12 months

Gestation / incubation

22 days of incubation

Litter / clutch size

3 eggs

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterocles_alchata

Best time: All year round on Iberian cereal plains and steppes; at dawn it comes in flocks to drink at pools and stock ponds, which is the best moment to see it.

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.