This bird uses saline and alkaline lakes and coasts in Patagonia. It has a rounded head, red eyes and pink legs. Some move from inland breeding grounds to the coast in winter.
Adults have a gray head, back and breast, a white belly, red eyes and short pink legs. The bill is short and black, and the sexes look alike.
It breeds along saline and alkaline lake shores and searches for small aquatic animals. In winter, it moves to coastal habitats.
It nests in a shallow ground depression near a lake, collecting small stones, and lays one or two eggs.
Parents provision the chicks by carrying food and also regurgitating fluid from the crop.
Juveniles have mottled gray upperparts and yellowish legs, with less intensely red eyes than adults.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.