Caspian plover
| Caspian plover | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Charadriidae |
| Genus: | Charadrius |
| Species: | C. asiaticus |
| Binomial name | |
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Charadrius asiaticus (Pallas, 1773) |
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The Caspian plover (Charadrius asiaticus) is a wader in the plover family of birds. 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 asiaticus is Latin and means "Asian", although in binomials it usually means the type locality was India.
This plover breeds in western and central Asia and migrates southward to eastern and southern Africa to escape the northern winter.
This plover is slightly larger than ringed plover, and it recalls greater sandplover and lesser sandplover in appearance. It is slimmer and longer-legged than the sandplovers, and has a much stronger white supercilium, and a long thin bill. It also lacks white tail sides and a weak wing bar.
Summer males have grey-brown backs and a white face and belly. The breast is chestnut, bordered black below. Other plumages have a grey-brown breast band, although the summer female may show a hint of chestnut. The call is a sharp chip.
The Caspian plover breeds in western Asia in the area of the Caspian Sea. Its range includes southern Russia, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Its habitat is steppes, desert verges, saltpans and saline soils amongst sparse shrubby vegetation up to an altitude of about 800 m (2,625 ft). After breeding, it migrates to eastern and southern Africa, going as far as the Zambezi River. Its winter quarters are usually dry grassland, coastal dunes, saltmarshes, dry floodplains and sometimes cultivated land. This plover is a very rare vagrant to western Europe. It is also a rare vagrant to Australia.
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Wikipedia