The greater sand plover (''Charadrius leschenaultii'') is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is commonly given as "greater sandplover" or "greater sand-plover", but the official

British Ornithologists' Union The British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) aims to encourage the study of birds ("ornithology") and around the world, in order to understand their biology and to aid their conservation. The BOU was founded in 1858 by Professor Alfred Newton, Henry ...

spelling is "Greater Sand Plover". The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from Ancient Greek ''kharadrios'' a bird found in ravines and river valleys (''kharadra'', "ravine"). The specific ''leschenaultii'' commemorates the French botanist Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour.

Distribution

It breeds in the semi-deserts of Turkey and eastwards through Central Asia. It nests in a bare ground scrape. This species is strongly migratory, wintering on sandy beaches in East Africa, South Asia and Australasia. It is a rare

vagrant Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

in western Europe, where it has been recorded as far west as Iceland. It has been spotted twice in North America, the most recent being on May 14, 2009, in Jacksonville, Florida.

Subspecies

There are three

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

: The nominate, ''C. l. columbinus'' and ''C. l. scythicus''. The last was known as ''C. l. crassirostris'' until it was established that this name is pre-occupied by a subspecies of Wilson's plover, ''C. w. crassirostris''.Carlos, C. J., S. Roselaar, & J-F. Voisin (2012). ''A replacement name for Charadrius leschenaultii crassirostris (Severtzov, 1873), a subspecies of Greater Sand Plover.'' Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club 132(1): 63–65.

Description

This chunky plover is long-legged and thick-billed. Breeding males have grey backs and white underparts. The breast, forehead and nape are chestnut, and there is a black eye mask. The female is duller, and winter and juvenile birds lack the chestnut, apart from a hint of rufous on the head. Legs are greenish and the

bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Plac ...

black. In all

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

s, it is very similar to lesser sand plover, ''Charadrius mongolus''. Separating the species may be straightforward in mixed wintering flocks on an Indian beach, where the difference in size and structure is obvious; it is another thing altogether to identify a lone vagrant to western Europe, where both species are very rare. The problem is compounded in that the Middle Eastern race of the greater sand plover is the most similar to the lesser species.

Ecology

Its food consists of insects, crustaceans and

annelid The annelids (Annelida , from Latin ', "little ring"), also known as the segmented worms, are a large phylum, with over 22,000 extant species including ragworms, earthworms, and leeches. The species exist in and have adapted to various ecol ...

worms, which are obtained by a run-and-pause technique, rather than the steady probing of some other wader groups. Its

flight call Flight calls are vocalisations made by bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a fou ...

is a soft trill. The greater sand plover is one of the species to which the ''Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds'' ( AEWA) applies.

References

External links

* Greater sand plover
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds
{{Taxonbar, from=Q18857 greater sand plover Birds of Central Asia Birds of Western Asia greater sand plover Articles containing video clips Taxa named by René Lesson