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This chunky plover is 19–22 cm long, slightly larger than a common ringed plover, and is conspicuously long-legged and thick-billed. Breeding males have sandy buff backs and white underparts. The breast, forehead and nape are variably orange in summer, and there is a black eye mask in summer. The female is duller and greyer, and winter and juvenile birds are browner, apart from a hint of rufous on the head. The legs are greenish-yellow and the bill black. In all plumages, it is very similar to its close relatives Siberian sand plover A. mongolus and Tibetan sand plover A. atrifrons.
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When to see the Greater Sand Plover
One bar for each month. Filled bars are the 11 months with records; pale bars are months with none. The wide bar is April, the month with the most records.
Where to see the Greater Sand Plover
The map shades 79 countries with regular records, and 15 more in a lighter tone where the bird turns up only as a stray. Everything unshaded has no records. Countries are listed below the map.
Recorded as a rare visitor in United States, France, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, Finland, Turkmenistan, Austria, Marshall Islands, Tajikistan.
About the Greater Sand Plover
The greater sand plover is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is often given as "greater sandplover" or "greater sand-plover", but the official IOC and British Ornithologists' Union spelling is "Greater Sand Plover". The specific leschenaultii commemorates the French botanist Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour. Like most other species in the genus Anarhynchus, it was until recently included in the genus Charadrius.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Easily confused with
WrybillAnarhynchus frontalisThe wrybill is a small, plump plover, measuring 20 to 21 cm (7.9–8.3 in) in length and weighing between 43 and 71 g (1.5–2.5 oz).
Oriental PloverAnarhynchus veredusAdult male in breeding plumage: white face, throat and fore-crown; grey-brown hind-crown, hind-neck and back; belly white, demarcated with narrow black band and then broad chestnut breast band merging into white throat.
Caspian PloverAnarhynchus asiaticusThis plover is slightly larger than ringed plover, and it recalls greater sandplover and lesser sandplover in appearance.
Side by side: Greater Sand Plover vs Kentish Plover · Greater Sand Plover vs Wrybill · Greater Sand Plover vs Oriental Plover · Caspian Plover vs Greater Sand Plover
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