A migratory bird of dry, stony, open areas such as heathland and acid grassland, which has adapted to breeding on open arable land. Its haunting cries can be heard from dusk to dawn when it is most active and it has large eyes to enable it to see in poor light. It nests in scrapes on patches of bare earth and feeds on invertebrates, chasing them across the ground on its long legs.

Described in the 1920's as being as common as wood pigeons on the heath, until 1956 they bred in every Sandlings parish from Covehithe to the Orwell estuary. Numbers have declined rapidly since the 1940's and it is now rare and very localised. Its stronghold is in the Breckland of Suffolk and Norfolk but there are still a few pairs breeding in the Sandlings, largely confined to arable land. Much management work has focussed on increasing the east Suffolk population by providing wide open areas of close-cropped acid grassland and disturbed, stony ground to attract new breeding pairs. Sympathetic management of arable land where they occur is also encouraged.