All species › Waders, gulls and terns › Plovers and lapwings › Siberian Sand Plover
Siberian Sand Plover | Anarhynchus mongolus
Mongoolse plevier | Chorlitejo mongol chico
The East Siberian sand plover, recognised as a separate species since 2023. It winters from Taiwan to Australia; the small sand plovers populating the Middle East are Tibetan Sand Plovers. The occurrence of Siberian Sand Plover in the region is unproven, but among the many thousands of winterers in the Gulf and Oman a vagrant is conceivable.
Voice
A short, hard trill, drrit or kruit, practically identical to that of Tibetan Sand Plover.
Recording: Bo Shunqi 薄顺奇 — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
The same size as Tibetan Sand Plover and almost identical in winter plumage: plain grey-brown upperparts, white forehead and supercilium, grey-brown breast patches, short blunt black bill and dark grey legs. Only the breeding male is readily identifiable: white forehead, often with a black vertical line, a black mask and a broad chestnut breast band separated from the white throat by a narrow black upper border.
Confusion species
Tibetan Sand Plover (Anarhynchus atrifrons) is the main pitfall: breeding males have a largely black forehead and lack the black upper border to the breast band; in winter plumage they cannot be safely separated. Greater Sand-Plover (Anarhynchus leschenaultii) is larger, with a longer, heavier bill and longer, paler legs.
Habitat
Tidal mudflats, sand and mud banks and lagoons; at high tide on beaches, among other sand plovers.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
No reliably documented records are known from the region; older reports of 'Lesser Sand Plover' almost all concern Tibetan Sand Plover, which until 2023 was included under that name. A record requires a well-photographed breeding male. Beyond the region the species breeds in eastern Siberia (Chukotka, Kamchatka, the Commander Islands) and winters from Taiwan and the Philippines through Indonesia and New Guinea to Australia.
How and when to look
From March to May, when males come into breeding plumage, check large flocks of Tibetan Sand Plovers in the Gulf and Oman for a bird with a white forehead and a black line above the breast band. Photograph the head and breast from the front and report the sighting to the national rarities committee.
Conservation status
Endangered (2023). Numbers have declined sharply through the loss of tidal flats around the Yellow Sea, the key staging area on migration.
Scientific name
Anarhynchus mongolus | (Pallas, 1776)
Pallas described the species in 1776 as Charadrius mongolus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Anarhynchus was introduced in 1832 by Quoy & Gaimard. Anarhynchus is Greek, from ana- 'backward' and rhunkhos 'bill', after the sideways-bent bill of the wrybill, the type species of the genus. mongolus means 'Mongolian' — for the type locality near the Mongolian border in Siberia. The specimen the first description was based on came from salt lakes near the Mongolian border (Onon River), Siberia.