Ok, so I deliberately chose the title of this post to get a few extra ‘hits’ on the blog… 🙂 but I think you’ll agree that an Oriental Plover in breeding plumage is one smart bird.
Oriental Plover (or OP) has been one of the birds I had been hoping to see at Wild Duck Lake and late March and early April is the prime time for this enigmatic wader. OP (Charadrius veredus), sometimes also known as Oriental Dotterel (or, perhaps, OD!), breeds in Mongolia, eastern Russia and Manchuria and winters in Indonesia and Australia. It is a migrant through the Beijing area and is annual in small numbers at Wild Duck Lake. Given its large range and population estimate of around 70,000 mature individuals, the species is listed as “Least Concern” by Birdlife International. However, its population is declining and that status may change in the near future. Spike and I picked up this individual, cohorting with a few LRPs (Little Ringed Plovers) and KPs (Kentish Plovers) about 5 minutes after arriving on site and about 5 minutes before the area was taken over by motorised buggies and horse riders enjoying national “tomb-sweeping day”…
Nice one T, glad you got it, send one this way
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Hi Phil… always good to see a new bird, especially one as good as OP! Jesper just texted me to say he has just seen a Great Bustard flying over the Summer Palace!! Super record! Hope all is well on Sweden’s gold coast… T
Tomb sweeping going on here, too, but no Oriental Plovers to compensate !