Collared Pratincole

The collared pratincole, also called the common or red-winged pratincole, is a wader of the pratincole family, 24–28 cm long with a wingspan of 60–70 cm. It has short legs, long pointed wings, a long forked tail and a short bill, all adaptations for feeding in the air. The back and head are brown and the wings brown with darker flight feathers. Pratincoles are unusual among waders in hunting their insect prey on the wing like swallows, though they can also feed on the ground (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is migratory, wintering in tropical Africa. Nesting is colonial, in a shallow scrape on open ground, often near water, and the clutch is two to four cream eggs with black or dark brown blotches, spots or streaks. The young are precocial and leave the nest, and fledge at 25–30 days. The cached account gives no detail specific to India. SoIB 2023 lists it as a winter migrant and localised summer migrant of open habitat that eats invertebrates, and does not assign a priority category (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).