Long-billed Plover Charadrius placidus 長嘴鴴
Category I. Rare winter visitor.
IDENTIFICATION
Feb. 2015, Martin Hale. Second calendar-year male.
18-21 cm. Compared to Little Ringed Plover obviously larger, with longer bill, legs and wings. Ear coverts and lores always brown. Adults usually have a broad black band above white forehead, which appears during moult in first winter. Whitish inner wing bar in flight obvious. Tail is white-tipped with a black subterminal band.
Nov. 2022, Tom Li. First-winter.
This first-winter bird has obvious pale fringes to the upperparts and wing coverts, no black on the head and dull legs. The long wings and drawn-out rear end are well-illustrated.
VOCALISATIONS
A piping ‘piwee’ in flight (Brazil 2018), and a ‘pyoo’ call similar to Little Ringed Plover, but flatter and less downslurred.
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT PREFERENCE
Has occurred in both brackish and freshwater habitat, including freshwater marsh, tidal river channel and drained fish pond.
OCCURRENCE
Records have occurred from 5 December to 20 March:
1994: Kam Tin from 20 February to 20 March (Carey 1995).
1998: Pak Nai on 30 January.
1999: near Mai Po village on 5 December.
2014: Kam Sheung Road from 9 January to 23 February.
2015: Lok Ma Chau during 4-27 February.
Herklots (1967) reported an unsubstantiated record near Shek Kong on 4 December 1955.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
No observations.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds in Ussuriland, northeast and central northern China and Japan, and winters in South Korea and south China west to Nepal and southeast to northern Indochina (Wiersma et al. 2020, Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend decreasing.
Brazil, M. (2018). Birds of Japan. Helm, London.
Carey, G. J. (1995). Long-billed Plover: the first record for Hong Kong. Hong Kong Bird Report 1994: 110-112.
Herklots, G. A. C. (1967). Hong Kong Birds (2nd ed.). South China Morning Post, Hong Kong.
Wiersma, P., G. M. Kirwan, and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Long-billed Plover (Charadrius placidus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.lobplo1.01
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
