Caspian Plover

Anarhynchus asiaticus

Stately plover with a gentle, dovelike expression. Breeding male is stunning, with a white face and belly separated by a broad chestnut patch across the chest. Breeding female is plainer brown, and has a warm rusty-brown patch across the chest. Nonbreeding adults and juveniles are grayish-brown with pale fringes to the feathers of the upperparts, as well as a pale face and belly. Oriental Plover is similar in nonbreeding plumage, but note the white stripe on the wing when Caspian is in flight. Inhabits open areas, near water when breeding and often away from it when wintering. Gives short nasal calls when in flight.

Identification

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.<p>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.

Taxonomy

Scientific name
Anarhynchus asiaticus
Authority
(Pallas, 1773)
Order
Charadriiformes
Family
Charadriidae
Genus
Anarhynchus

Range and habitat

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.

Breeding range
PAL : temperate inland c Asia: sw Russia, Kazakhstan (except n), Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to nw Xinjiang (nw China)
Non-breeding range
inland Kenya to sc Africa
Migration
Complete migrants

Conservation

Population trend
declining

Photos

Distribution

Bird Calls

Other Birds

Blue-fronted Robin

Blue-fronted Robin

Cinclidium frontale

Large ground-dwelling robin with a long broad tail. Male is dark blue with a shining sapphire forehead. Female is dark brown with paler underparts. Both sexes lack the large white tail panels of the otherwise similar White-tailed Robin. Inhabits well-vegetated mid- to high-elevation forests, where it forages quietly on the ground in dense undergrowth. Song is short but sweet, consisting of 3-4 whistled phrases, somewhat like a truncated thrush song. 

Great Gray Owl

Great Gray Owl

Strix nebulosa

A large enigmatic owl of bogs, meadows, and coniferous forest. This rare and sought-after species is most often seen hunting around dawn and dusk, when it perches silently at the edges of clearings. Feeds mainly on voles. When vole populations crash, Great Grays can be found in large numbers south of their usual northern haunts, especially in winter. Yellow eyes and white bow-tie pattern on neck separate Great Gray from Barred. Its deep hoots are rarely heard.

Sangkar White-eye

Sangkar White-eye

Zosterops melanurus

Typical-looking white-eye, with bright yellowish upperparts and bright white “spectacles.” Recently split from Oriental White-eye, to which it may still be referred to as in older literature. Throughout most of its range, this species has a yellow belly, but birds in the far western corner of Java have gray bellies. The only “classic white-eye” throughout much of its range; in areas of overlap with other species, Sangkar’s combination of dark eyes and a prominent dark stripe between the eye and bill base serve to identify it. Found in lowland and foothill forests, forest edges, gardens, and plantations. Calls include bright, descending “deee, deee.” Song is jumbled and high-pitched, and has made this species a sought-after target in the cagebird trade; as such, it is now uncommon or rare in certain areas of otherwise suitable habitat.

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