Lesser Sand Plover

The Siberian sand plover, or Mongolian plover, is a small, chunky, long-legged and long-billed plover. Breeding males have grey backs and white underparts, with a chestnut breast, forehead and nape and a black eye mask, dark legs and a black bill. In all plumages it is very similar to the greater sand plover, but the difference in size and structure is obvious in mixed wintering flocks on a beach (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds discontinuously across bare coastal plains in north-eastern Siberia and has also bred in Alaska, nesting in a bare ground scrape with three eggs. It is strongly migratory, wintering on sandy beaches in east and south-east Asia and Australia. It takes fewer steps and shorter pauses than the greater sand plover when feeding, and its flight call is a hard trill (Wikipedia, general species account).