This small plover occurs on New Zealand's beaches, estuaries and riverbeds. Its chestnut breast band changes with season, and many inland breeders move to the coast after breeding.
It has brown upperparts and a chestnut breast band. The band can be complete or partial and is most striking in breeding plumage; the plumage varies seasonally.
It searches beaches, estuaries and riverbeds for small invertebrates, using a run-stop-peck pattern. Many birds that breed inland move to coastal wetlands after breeding.
A shallow scrape in sand, gravel or soil is lined with tiny stones and sometimes shell. The usual clutch is three spotted eggs. Both parents incubate for about four weeks, and chicks can fly five to six weeks after hatching.
At coastal sites it eats crustaceans and flies. On breeding grounds it also takes spiders, beetles and aquatic insect larvae, and it sometimes eats shrub berries. It often feeds at night in estuaries.
Breeding males have a broad chestnut breast band and a narrow black neck band above it. Both bands are duller in females. Pale edges to the back feathers can give juveniles a mottled appearance.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.