The ruff is a medium-sized wading bird that breeds in marshes and wet meadows across northern Eurasia. This highly gregarious sandpiper is migratory and sometimes forms huge flocks in its winter grounds, which include southern and western Europe, Africa, southern Asia and Australia.
Region
Northern Eurasia and Afro-Eurasian flyways
Typical Environment
Breeds across marshes, wet meadows, tundra edges, and sedge fens of northern Europe and Asia. During migration and winter it frequents mudflats, estuaries, floodplains, rice paddies, and damp agricultural fields. Large concentrations gather at traditional stopover wetlands. Wintering occurs widely in western and southern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, South and South-East Asia, and in smaller numbers to Australasia.
Altitude Range
0–1500 m
Climate Zone
Temperate
Ease of Keeping
Beginner friendly: 1/5
Male ruffs develop spectacular, highly variable breeding plumage with ornate neck ruffs and head tufts and display on leks; females are called ‘reeves’ and are much smaller and plainer. Males show alternative mating strategies, including territorial ‘independents’, paler ‘satellites’, and rare female-mimicking ‘faeders’. Outside the breeding season, both sexes molt into a drab grey-brown plumage and form large flocks at staging and wintering sites.
Male in juvenile plumage, St Petersburg, Russia
Ruff in flight, showing the white sides to the rump and the narrow white wingbar; Nepal
Wintering in India
Illustration of a lek by Johann Friedrich Naumann (1780–1857)
Ruff in Nederlandsche Vogelen,Vol. 1 (1770)
Otto van Veen's sixteenth-century painting of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma wearing a ruff, the decorative collar from which the English name of the bird is derived.
Skeleton of a ruff
Eggs, Collection Museum Wiesbaden
The carrion crow will raid the nests of wetland waders for eggs and young.
Rice paddies are a favoured winter feeding ground
1897 illustration of ruffs being trapped for food with a net
Male in non-breeding plumage in India
Temperament
social and active
Flight Pattern
strong flier with rapid, direct wingbeats and agile turns
Social Behavior
On breeding grounds, males display on leks where females visit to choose mates; mating system is polygynous. Nests are shallow ground scrapes placed in dense vegetation in wet meadows or marsh edges. Outside breeding, ruffs are highly gregarious, forming large mixed flocks at feeding and roosting sites.
Migratory Pattern
Seasonal migrant
Song Description
Generally quiet; males give soft grunts, purrs, and hisses during lek displays. Flock contact calls are short, dry notes and low trills, especially in flight or at roosts.
