Crowned Sandgrouse Pterocles coronatus

Crowned Sandgrouse Pterocles coronatus

near Merzouga, Morocco
April 2014

The Crowned Sandgrouse is distributed in the Sahara Desert from Morocco to the Red Sea, in the Arabian Peninsula and in Iran, southern Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a bird of the desert and semi-desert preferring stony desert to sandy desert.

The female, to the right in photo 1, is even more cryptically plumaged than the male as she does most of the daytime incubating. The male has a striking head pattern with a rufous crown patch and black vertical stripe down each side of the head.

They feed mainly on seeds and are gregarious in general. They are most easily seen when they visit a waterhole to drink in the early morning.

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