Greater Sand Plover Charadrius leschenaultii 鐵嘴沙鴴
Category I. Common to abundant passage migrant in spring and autumn, more numerous in spring; spring counts have decreased substantially since the 1990s, while those in autumn have increased. Scarce winter visitor.
IDENTIFICATION
Apr. 2009, Michelle and Peter Wong.
20-25 cm. In breeding plumage has broad black mask across forehead with a narrow white area or two white spots above the bill base; black extends behind and below eye. Nape and hindneck pale orange extending round to chest where it is deeper and rustier in tone. Many of the upperpart feathers have a pale orange wash. Females are duller and greyer.
Moults into winter plumage on the breeding grounds, and so lacks breeding plumage feathers in autumn.
Apr. 2020, Michelle and Peter Wong.
Distinguished from Lesser Sand Plover largely by structure. The bill is more deeply-based with a more swollen distal half and more attenuated tip; also has larger eyes, longer legs and generally more ungainly proportions. Most birds have yellowish legs and paler upperparts (especially in spring). Foraging behaviour is also different: stands still for longer periods before running at crabs or other prey located by sight.
Juveniles have narrow whitish fringes to the scapulars and coverts, and in fresh plumage can have a warm buff wash on the chest. The bird illustrated is in its second calendar-year as it lacks almost all breeding plumage feathers.
VOCALISATIONS
The typical flight call is a trilling note that is similar to Lesser Sand Plover but fuller and possibly slightly deeper; care and experience is required to separate the two.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
Most records are from the intertidal mudflats of Deep Bay, adjacent roosting areas on Mai Po NR and, occasionally, the commercial fish ponds. Greater Sand Plover is more frequently recorded than Lesser Sand Plover away from Deep Bay, however. There are records from intertidal areas across much of Hong Kong, as well as the airport where day-roosting birds are occasionally seen. The highest count away from Deep Bay up to 1998 was 32 at Shuen Wan, while since then all but one count has been in single figures, the exception being a relatively high midwinter count of 18 at Sha Tau Kok on 13 January 2009: there are only a handful of midwinter records away from Deep Bay.
OCCURRENCE
Systematic shorebird counts since 1998 indicate that Greater Sand Plover is a passage migrant in both spring and autumn (Figure 1), with the peak weekly count in spring approximately twice as high as in autumn. Migration appears to commence in the first week of March, with main spring passage occurring in the first three weeks of April. Passage usually peters out in the first week of June, after which presumed over-summering birds are present, the highest counts being up to 84 during 28-30 June 2018 and up to 32 during 25-26 June 2017.
Autumn passage is evident from the first week of July and the main passage period occurs during August, declining thereafter; numbers are very low in the first half of November, after which there is an increase presumably indicating the arrival of wintering birds. The highest December count since 1999 is 37 on 23 December 2018.
The highest spring counts are 2,700 on 9 April 1989, 2,000 during 9-10 April 1992 and 1,600 on 16 April 1988. These stand in sharp contrast to the period since 2000 when the highest spring count is 773 on 13 April 2010 (Figure 2). The highest count during autumn passage up to 1998 was 182 on 28 September 1991; however, several counts since the turn of the century have been higher than this, the highest being 500 on 5 August 2008. Thus, it appears that numbers in spring have greatly declined in spring and moderately increased in autumn.
Winter numbers also appear to be greater, with the highest midwinter count being 24 on 15 January 2017, which compares with the highest reliable winter count of only six last century (previous high counts of up to 50 are now considered unreliable).
Vaughan and Jones (1913) referred to a species of sand plover as an accidental winter visitor, though it is not entirely clear which as it is referred to as ‘Great Sand-Plover Ochthodromus mongolus’. Dove and Goodhart (1955) stated that Greater Sand Plover was the commonest plover during migration, with highest numbers recorded in spring.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Forages in intertidal mudflats on crabs and worms. Often stands still for period of time before running at crabs located by sight.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Breeds from Turkey east through Central Asia to northwest China, Mongolia and southern Siberia, winters along coastlines of the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, southeast Asia, Indonesia and Australia (Wiersma et al. 2020). In China breeds in Xinjiang, is a migrant through the eastern half of the country and winters along southern coastlines, including Taiwan and Hainan (Liu and Chen 2020).
The nominate subspecies breeds passes through large areas of Asia, including Hong Kong. Two other subspecies are recognised: C. l. columbinus breeding Turkey to south Afghanistan and C. l. scythicus breeding Turkmenistan and south Kazakhstan.
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend decreasing.
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Dove, R. S. and H. J. Goodhart (1955). Field observations from the Colony of Hong Kong. Ibis 97: 311-340.
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.
Wiersma, P., G. M. Kirwan, and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Greater Sand-Plover (Charadrius leschenaultii), 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.grsplo.01
Vaughan, R. E. and K. H. Jones (1913). The birds of Hong Kong, Macao and the West River or Si Kiang in South-East China, with special reference to their nidification and seasonal movements. Ibis 1913: 17-76, 163-201, 351-384.
