All species › Waders, gulls and terns › Plovers and lapwings › Pied Plover
Pied Plover | Hoploxypterus cayanus
Cayennekievit | Avefría de Cayena
The Pied Plover is a small, black-and-white lapwing of sandy and muddy banks along the rivers and lakes of tropical South America. It is a resident that hardly migrates, and in the Caribbean a very rare vagrant: one record is known from Curaçao, and the species is on the list of Trinidad and Tobago.
Voice
A clear, two-part kee-oo, the second part lower; in display flight a repeated klee. Vagrants often call little.
Recording: Jacob Wijpkema — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
21–24 cm. A compact lapwing with a distinctive pattern: a black mask over forehead, lores and cheeks that continues down the sides of the neck into a broad black breast band; a sandy-brown crown bordered by a white band; a white throat; black scapulars forming a V on the upper back; mantle and wing coverts sandy brown, underparts white. Red eye-ring, short black bill and long red legs. In flight the black primaries, a white wing band, sandy-brown coverts and the white tail with a black terminal band contrast. Sexes alike; juveniles are duller, with pale fringes and a yellowish rather than red eye-ring.
Confusion species
Southern Lapwing Vanellus chilensis is much larger, grey and brown with a crest and a black throat and breast, without the black-and-white head pattern. Killdeer Charadrius vociferus has two narrow breast bands, plain brown upperparts and an orange-rufous rump. With its black-and-white pattern, sandy back and red legs, Pied Plover resembles no other species in the region.
Habitat
In the breeding range sand and gravel bars and muddy banks along lowland rivers and lakes, often in forested country. The Curaçao bird stayed by the ponds of a golf course, showing that vagrants also turn up on artificial shores and short grass.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
A Pied Plover was recorded on Curaçao for the first time in June 2023, at Blue Bay, where it stayed for about two weeks. The species is also on the official list of Trinidad and Tobago, close to the South American mainland. No records are known from other islands. Beyond the region in tropical South America east of the Andes, from Colombia, Venezuela and the Guianas to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay.
How and when to look
A chance exists mainly on the islands off Venezuela, Trinidad and the ABC Islands, on the shores of ponds and reservoirs. A report is quickly confirmed with a photograph, since the pattern is unique.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. In the Caribbean a very rare vagrant, with one record from Curaçao; the species is also on the Trinidad and Tobago list.
Scientific name
Hoploxypterus cayanus | (Latham, 1790)
Latham described the species in 1790 as Charadrius cayanus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Hoploxypterus was introduced in 1856 by Bonaparte. Hoploxypterus is Greek, from hoplon 'weapon', oxus 'sharp' and pteron 'wing', after the sharp spur at the bend of the wing. cayanus refers to Cayenne in French Guiana. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.