Basic Description

A male Ruff in breeding plumage is an outlandish mix of flamboyant head tufts and shaggy neck "ruffs" in a seemingly limitless array of black, buff, russet, white, and bold bars and spots. These showy males display and occasionally fight on communal display grounds where they vie for the attention of smaller, brown-and-white females. Aside from the bizarre breeding males, this species is a fairly typical shorebird, feeding largely on insects and other invertebrates and utilizing an array of wetland habitats throughout the year. Ruffs gather in huge concentrations of up to one million birds on West African nonbreeding grounds, and a few stray individuals visit North America each year.