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Adult Grey Plovers in summer plumage have black forehead, head-flanks, throat, breast and fore-belly; undertail and belly are white. Quit broad white band begins on forehead; passes over eye, ear, on flanks of neck, craw and breast; and bordered black underparts from mottled upperparts. Upper-head is white black-mottled on crown. Upperparts are black with numerous white spots. Uppertail and tail are white with longitudinal dark spots. Flight feathers are blackish with white patches on inner primaries and secondaries. Cores of all feathers are white. Axillaries are black. Bill and legs are black. Eyes are dark-brownish. The difference between male and female are not considerable; female have black-brownish color in place of black in male; also female have some white feathers on underparts. Adults in winter plumage have grayish-brown upperparts with white spots. Forehead, head-flanks and underparts are white with brownish mottles. Juveniles are same colored on winter adults but spots on upperparts are yellowish, but craw and flanks are great mottled by brownish streaks and spots. Sizes: wing - 120-205 mm, tarsus - 43-52 mm, bill - 25-35 mm. Weight: 189-285 grams.

Biology

Grey Plover israre passage migrant. Occurs on fresh or salty lakes, prefer sandy, crushed stone and saline soil shores, grassy shore is visited very rare. In spring appears end March, but mostly in April or early May. Latest birds observed until end May. Autumn migration begins in mid-July, and continues until end October - early November. Frey Plover migrates in small flocks of up to 20-30, but sometimes more than one hundred birds, or singly.

References

"Птицы Казахстана" том 2. Алма-Ата, 1962. Э.И.Гаврилов. "Фауна и распространение птиц Казахстана". Алматы, 1999. Gavrilov E. I., Gavrilov A. E. "The Birds of Kazakhstan". Almaty, 2005.