Greater sand plover
| Greater sand plover | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Charadriidae |
| Genus: | Charadrius |
| Species: | C. leschenaultii |
| Binomial name | |
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Charadrius leschenaultii (Lesson, 1826) |
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The greater sand plover (Charadrius leschenaultii) is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is commonly given as "greater sandplover" or "greater sand-plover", but the official British Ornithologists' Union spelling is "Greater Sand Plover". The genus name Charadrius is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from Ancient Greek kharadrios a bird found in ravines and river valleys (kharadra, "ravine"). The specific leschenaultii commemorates the French botanist Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour.
It breeds in the semi-deserts of Turkey and eastwards through Central Asia. It nests in a bare ground scrape. This species is strongly migratory, wintering on sandy beaches in east Africa, south Asia and Australasia. It is a rare vagrant in western Europe, where it has been recorded as far west as Great Britain, France and Iceland. It has been spotted twice in North America, the most recent being on May 14, 2009, in Jacksonville, Florida.
There are three subspecies: The nominate, C. l. columbinus and C. l. leschenaultii. The last was known as C. l. crassirostris until it was established that this name is pre-occupied by a subspecies of Wilson's plover, C. w. crassirostris.
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Wikipedia