Figure 1.

Kittlitz's plovers rarely have clearly defined nest edges; instead, the amount of loose material they move decreases with distance from the nest. We therefore measured the nest visual appearance in concentric rings centered on the nest (white rings, “a” to “e”). Zone “a” was always composed of entirely modified material, while zone “e” was typically minimally modified or unmodified. Any egg visible through the nest‐covering material was excluded from analysis (red). We also took a pair of control photographs 5 m either side of each nest as random background samples that are highly unlikely to have been substantially modified by the plovers (bottom left and right)