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Pacific Golden Plover | Pluvialis fulva
Aziatische goudplevier | Chorlito dorado siberiano
The Pacific Golden Plover is the Pacific counterpart of the American Golden Plover: it breeds in Siberia and western Alaska and winters from southern Asia to Australia and the islands of the Pacific. In the Caribbean it is a very rare vagrant, and every golden plover here therefore deserves a second look.
Voice
A sharp, disyllabic chu-weet, clearer than the call of American Golden Plover and somewhat recalling that of Spotted Redshank; also a short chee. The call is a useful clue with vagrants.
Recording: Xiangrong Yan — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
23–26 cm. Slightly smaller and more slender than American Golden Plover, with relatively longer legs, a slightly larger bill and a shorter primary projection: at rest usually only two or three primary tips extend beyond the tertials, which reach far back. Outside the breeding season often warmer golden on back, breast and face, with a yellowish supercilium. In breeding plumage black from face to belly, but with a white band continuing from the side of the neck along the flanks, and white-mottled undertail coverts. In flight a faint wing bar, a dark rump and a grey underwing; the toes project slightly beyond the tail.
Confusion species
American Golden Plover Pluvialis dominica is the main confusion risk: it is somewhat stockier and shorter-legged, with a longer primary projection, and usually greyer in autumn. In breeding plumage the American shows entirely black underparts without white flanks. Grey Plover Pluvialis squatarola is larger, with a white rump and black axillaries.
Habitat
The same places as American Golden Plover: short grassland, pastures, golf courses and airfields, but also salt pans, mudbanks and drained ponds. Elsewhere in the wintering range often on lawns and playing fields.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Records are known from Barbados, where birds stayed for long periods in 2017 and 2018, and from a few other islands, including the Bahamas and Guadeloupe; sightings have also been reported from the Cayman Islands. Most islands have no records, and the distribution in the region has not been well summarised. Beyond the region it breeds in northern Siberia and western Alaska and winters in southern and south-east Asia, Australia, New Zealand and on the Pacific islands, in smaller numbers also in East Africa.
How and when to look
A golden plover among flocks of American Golden Plovers or other shorebirds on Barbados or elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles merits closer inspection: leg length, primary projection and call are the key. Side-on photographs of the standing bird help with later assessment.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. In the Caribbean a very rare vagrant with no regular presence.
Scientific name
Pluvialis fulva | (Gmelin, 1789)
Gmelin described the species in 1789 as Charadrius fulvus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pluvialis was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Pluvialis is Latin for 'relating to rain', from pluvia 'rain', from the old belief that these plovers flocked when rain was imminent. fulva is Latin for 'tawny, yellowish-brown', after the golden spangling of the upperparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Tahiti.