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Tibetan Sand Plover | Anarhynchus atrifrons
Tibetaanse plevier | Chorlitejo tibetano
The small sand plover of the Middle East. Since the split of the former Lesser Sand Plover in 2023, the birds that winter in large numbers on the mudflats of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Yemen belong to this species, mainly to the race pamirensis from the high mountains of Central Asia.
Voice
A short, hard trill, drrit or tirrik, often in flight; harder and drier than the rolling call of Greater Sand-Plover.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
Compact and round, with a short, blunt black bill shorter than the distance from bill base to the rear of the eye, and dark grey legs. In winter plumage plain grey-brown above, with a white forehead and white supercilium and grey-brown breast patches that sometimes join into a narrow band. The breeding male, from March, has a black mask, a largely or entirely black forehead and a broad orange-rufous breast band without a black upper border. In flight a narrow white wingbar; the toes do not or barely project beyond the tail.
Confusion species
Greater Sand-Plover (Anarhynchus leschenaultii) is larger, with a longer, heavier bill with a swollen tip, a larger head and longer, paler legs whose toes project beyond the tail in flight. Siberian Sand Plover (Anarhynchus mongolus) cannot be safely separated in winter plumage; breeding males have a white forehead and a black upper border to the breast band. Caspian Plover (Anarhynchus asiaticus) is slimmer and longer-legged and stands on dry ground; Common Ringed Plover (Charadrius hiaticula) has orange legs and a complete collar.
Habitat
Tidal mudflats, sand and mud banks, lagoons, mangrove creeks and salt pans; at high tide on beaches and shingle ridges, often in mixed flocks with Greater Sand-Plovers. Rarely inland.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Along the Persian Gulf a common winter visitor and passage migrant from Kuwait and southern Iraq through eastern Saudi Arabia (Tarut Bay, Al Uqair), Bahrain and Qatar to the Emirates; in the 1980s tens of thousands were counted in eastern Saudi Arabia. Also numerous along the coast of Oman (Barr al Hikman, Masirah, Dhofar), in Yemen and on Socotra. Scarcer along the Red Sea: fairly scarce on the Saudi and Yemeni coasts, and a scarce migrant in Egypt, Jordan (Aqaba) and Israel (Eilat). There are only a few inland records. Not reliably recorded west of Egypt. Beyond the region it breeds in the Pamirs, the Himalaya and on the Tibetan Plateau and winters on the coasts of East Africa, South Asia and South-East Asia.
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Barr al Hikman in Oman, the lagoons of Abu Dhabi and Khor Kalba and the bays of eastern Saudi Arabia are good sites from September to April. On a rising tide look in mixed flocks for the smallest, roundest sand plovers and compare directly with Greater Sand-Plover: the ratio between bill and head is the best guide.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. In the region reclamation and coastal development along the Gulf, disturbance on the mudflats and the degradation of mangroves are the main threats.
Scientific name
Anarhynchus atrifrons | (Wagler, 1829)
Wagler described the species in 1829 as Charadrius atrifrons; 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. atrifrons is Latin for 'black-fronted', from ater 'black' and frons 'forehead'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bengal.