Greater Sand-plover…by Brad Marks

Greetings from Oregon…wait, if I back up and take a running jump that might be Washington…regardless, a long way away from home. It is unlikely I will ever get “bored” of birding, but one word that does come to mind at the moment is “exhaustion”. It has been one busy day after another filled with major excitement, some disappointments and a whole lot of stress trying to hunt down targets and get something in the tin during often very brief glimpses. Oh, and an encounter with a Point Break wannabee who tried to throw me off “their beach” – more on that story in a future post. For those keeping score at home, the Average Year (link here) count now sits at 369+3 provisionals. In detail since leaving on our trip: +69 new annual checks including +28 lifers. A quick count of the misses so far is 5 – some I will hopefully be able to pick up as we get deeper in the trip, others are regionally specific and lost until we make our next trip to the northwest sigh. Still plenty of opportunities left to add to these numbers (tomorrow going for 3 more lifers!). Most surprising is I’ve moved up to #379 on this year’s top US birders list yay! Time to recharge the batteries while Brad takes the lead and brings you another of their adventures from Down Under. See you again soon!

Take it away Brad…

During one of our “free” mornings in Cairns (pronounced “cans”), Australia, Jan and I were happily photographing birds from the boardwalk along edge of the Coral Sea.  Though only mid-morning, temps were already nearing 30C (85F).  Humidity was as high as it can go:  100%.  The tide was on its way out leaving behind a vast tidal flat of mud and small birds.  There were little brown things with spindly legs moving all over the mud.  Some were fiddler crabs, some had feathers. 

As is usually the case with such a broad area for photographing, Jan heads one direction, and I head another.  Still within sight of each other, but able to cover a much larger area, we could photograph twice as many birds.  Or at least the same birds from different angles.

I’ve mentioned before that carrying a large camera and lens combo attracts all sorts of attention.  I certainly don’t claim to be an expert on birds in America, let alone Australia; I’m hoping to be upgraded to novice soon on two continents (see note at the end).  This morning, my bird ID app certainly wasn’t offering much help with audio.  Plus, the shore birds weren’t close enough to hear their calls over the surf.  For today’s bird ID, I relied on a sign posted by the water’s edge (I usually take a photo of any sign picturing local birds) and a group of self-proclaimed local “twitchers” wandering through, asking me, “Do you like our Plovers”?  I, of course, answered “Yes, I do.”

If you answered “Yes” to the Plover question, go ahead and hit that jump!

At the time, the twitchers told me the birds were Siberian Sand-plovers.  Not knowing any better, I made a mental note to enter them into eBird and continued taking photos.  I know I’m not lucky enough to be the one to find anything at its extreme edge of their non-breeding range.  The Siberian Sand-plover normal range is, are you ready for this, near Siberia.  Ta da!

However, upon closer examination in the digital dark room, this is a Greater Sand-Plover (Anarhynchus leschenaultii).  Depending on when you are reading this, the scientific name may or may not have been updated in your local area.  The answer to your next question is yes, this is a +1 for Jan and I.  Through the viewfinder, they are all small brown shore birds on toothpick-sized pale green legs.  That pretty much fits the description for any LBJ at the edge of the surf, some being cuter than the others. 

If I’d been able to zoom in past the 500mm my lens offered (like with Sam.Rappen’s turbo-charged 600mm Nikon lens with 1.4x teleconverter attached offering an impressive vibration-reduced 850mm viewing experience), some of the differences may have been easier to spot at the time.  The key differences are in the bill length and leg color.  Siberian Sand-plovers have a shorter stubbier black bill, the Greater Sand-Plover has a little bit longer, but by no means long bill (thinking Whimbrel).  Siberians have black legs while the Greaters have pale greenish colored legs and stand just a tiny bit taller.    A side-by-side comparison would have been great.  If one of our Intrigued readers speaks Plover, can you talk with the birds about helping out us bird photographers please?

In comparison, the Siberian Sand-Plovers are also a bit more compact in the body, where a Greater Sand-Plover is a bit more streamlined.  Adult Siberians may also have a slightly reddish tint to their head and upper chest.  Adult Greaters do also, but less reddish.  Ponyatno? (Siberian for “Clear?”)  Like most birds I’ve encountered in my fledgling birding adventure, unless they are side by side, I can’t tell them apart.  It took me a couple of years to tell Downy woodpeckers from Hairy woodpeckers.  The landmark moment was when I happened to catch them both at the same feeder moments apart; the size difference was obvious from that point on. 

I’m not doubting the twitchers, because they were locals and may have very well been pointing at Siberians while I was looking at and photographing Greaters.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Cairns has an embarrassment of riches on their tidal flats.  On this day, there were plovers all over the tidal flat.  The information sign at the water’s edge listed both birds as something observers might see near the water.  I’m sure each and every bird represented on the sign was in the mud somewhere in front of me.

Jan and I found these Greater Sand-Plovers in their non-breeding range, which includes nearly the entire outer edge of Australia (that’s a lot of territory) except for the really dry and rocky bits on the South coast in the middle of the continent.  Their breeding habitat is mostly in Mongolia and northern China with tiny populations throughout Asia, even all the way over to Türkiye (formerly spelled as Turkey).

They are still very cute and busy little birds.  At first glance I thought I was seeing Sanderlings; bring on the smiles (quick smile fix here).  However, these weren’t near the water’s edge and weren’t chasing the surf back and forth like Sanderlings do.  They were hanging out as singles or in small groups on the tidal mud.  Being small birds, and a bit far away, I’ve had to crop these photos a fair amount.  Otherwise, you’d see a small brown smudge against a brown mud flat.  And these are too cute to let go at just a smudge.

Greater Sand-plovers will eat anything they can dig up from the mud or very shallow water, usually invertebrates or small crabs.  A pair will raise up to three eggs in a small scrape directly on the ground in its preferred location:  higher altitude, arid, open habitat.  We happened to see them in their winter, non-breeding range:  coastal mudflats and estuaries.  Greater Sand-plovers are very used to crossing the Equator between their breeding and non-breeding grounds.  Incubation is around 27 days, with chicks fledging in 35-45 days.  Populations are of Least Concern worldwide. 

While writing most of this story, I went back to my LR collection from the trip, and DID find a few photos of Siberian Sand-plovers.  Thankfully, now I will not have to scour the nearly 11,000 images left from the trip (from the original 27,500+) because I found a few Siberians in the background of the Greater Sand-Plover photos.  The twitchers were correct, after all.  At the time, I probably thought the smaller birds were simply the juveniles of the larger ones in the foreground.  I stand corrected.  Again.  Apparently, Siberian Sand-plovers, at least based on my experience, like hanging around in the blurry background of Greater Sand-plover photographs.  Watch this space for a potential future story on Siberian Sand-plovers.

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more Greater Sand-Plover, please visit here. 

Credits

Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for many of the photos in this story.

Note at the end

Here are the stats from my eBird profile for 2025:

Australia               5,066^th           84 species
New Zealand        1,692^nd          31 species     
United States     32,036^th        146 species