Kentish plover

Common Name	Kentish ploverBirdlife International
Species name	Charadrius alexandrinusBirdlife International
Family	Charadriidae
Genus
Local Name	Country Appearance Local name Brunei Darussalam     Cambodia     China     Indonesia     Japan Yes シロチドリ Lao PDR     Malaysia     Mongolia     Myanmar     Philippines     Republic of Korea     Singapore     Thailand     Vietnam

 

Visual and Sound Image

Photos

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Sounds

 

Identification

No descriptions

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Range Description

No descriptions

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Ecology

Ecology (Behaviour)

Although some populations of this species are sedentary or only disperse short distances, most inland and northern coastal populations are fully migratory and have distinct separate breeding and wintering ranges. The species occupies its breeding grounds chiefly from March to October, dispersing from late-June immediately after the young fledge, with the southward migration peaking in September. The species nests solitarily or in loose semicolonial groups usually in densities of 0.5 to 20 pairs per hectare (exceptionally up to 100 pairs per hectare), and sometimes in association with other species (e.g. Least Tern Sterna antillarum). Outside of the breeding season the species feeds singly or in small flocks of 20-30 individuals, and occasionally in larger flocks of up to 260 individuals, often roosting in large mixed-species flocks.

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Habitat

During all seasons the species is predominantly coastal and is usually found on sand, silt or dry mud surfaces, generally avoiding very exposed oceanic coastlines and rocky or broken ground. It also shows a preference for sparsely vegetated and sandy areas when breeding. Typical habitats include sandy, pebbly or muddy shores dunes, coastal lagoons, coastal marshes (China), tropical shores of coral limestone, estuaries and tidal mudflats (Africa). It is uncommon on freshwater, even when migrating, but frequently occurs on inland habitats not far from the coast such as seasonal watercourses, open flats near brackish or saline lakes, salt-pans, salty steppes with scattered grasses, sandy deserts, pebbly or muddy plains, gravel pits, and less frequently sandy riverbanks (Africa) sandy pond margins and barren reservoir shores.

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Diet

Its diet consists mainly of insects and their larvae (e.g. beetles and flies), gammarids, crabs, other crustaceans and brine shrimps, bivalve and univalve molluscs polychaete worms, spiders and small pieces of seaweed.

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Breeding Site

The nest is a shallow scrape positioned near water on bare earth or in sparse vegetation, often on slightly raised ground and partly sheltered by plants or near conspicuous objects such as grass clumps or shrubs. The species nests in semicolonial groups, with nests spaced between 2 and 5 m (western Paleartic) or more than 20 m apart (up to 80 m).

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References

1. del Hoyo et al. (1996). 2. Johnsgard (1981). 3. Hayman et al. (1986). 4. Urban et al. (1986). 5. Snow and Perrins (1998). 6. Grimmett et al. (1998). 7. MacKinnon and Phillipps (2000). 8. Blaker (1967). 9. Kelin and Qiang (2006). 10. Barter (2006). 11. Ruhlen et al. (2006). 12. Powell and Collier (2000). 13. Koenen et al. (1996a). 14. Koenen et al. (1996b). 15. Lafferty et al. (2006). 16. Neuman et al. (2004).

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Status

International Status

IUCN Red List Category

LC

Justification

This species has an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (Extent of Occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). Despite the fact that the population trend appears to be decreasing, the decline is not believed to be sufficiently rapid to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is very large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be 10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.

 

National Status

Country	Category	Reference
Brunei Darussalam
Cambodia
China
Indonesia
Japan	VU	http://www.biodic.go.jp/rdb/rdb_f.html
Korea
Lao PDR
Malaysia
Mongolia
Myanmar
Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Vietnam

 

Management

Threat

The species is threatened by the disturbance of coastal habitats (e.g. tourists trampling nests and disturbing roosts on beaches). It is also threatened by the degradation and loss of wetland habitat through environmental pollution, land reclamation, declining river flows (from water abstraction), unsustainable harvesting of benthic fauna, urbanisation and a reduction in the amount of sediment being carried into coastal areas by rivers. The species is susceptible to avian botulism, so may be threatened by future outbreaks of the disease.

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Information

Shallowly flooding a previously dry habitat at Owens Lake, California, was found to attract more breeding pairs to the area and had the effect of extending the nesting season by c.1 month11. At Batiquitos Lagoon, California, creating new nesting areas from dredging spoils (e.g. coarse-grained sand and shell fragments) attracted more breeding pairs and non-breeding individuals, possibly because the new areas were covered with less debris and a smaller amount of tall vegetation than older sites. In the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma, there is evidence that nests adjacent to herbaceous and shrub vegetation suffer significantly lower losses to flooding but significantly higher losses to mammalian predation than those 500 or 1,000 m away. In the same area artificial nest ridges (made by ploughing) and nest mounds constructed from existing materials (gravel, sand and clay) were found not to reduce nest flooding. Predator exclusion experiments from nesting areas using electric fences in the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma and in Monterey Bay, California were unsuccessful in increasing the number of chicks fledged per male or significantly reducing annual egg predation (this was probably still limited by avian predation), although in Monterey Bay the hatching success of nests within the exclosure did increase and the overall nesting success was higher for breeding pairs within the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge exclosures. At Monterey Bay the predator exclosures were also not successful in increasing adult breeding numbers, and the mortality of incubating adults was actually higher within the enclosures than outside them. On beaches in Santa Barbara, California, erecting protective barriers to direct tourist foot-traffic away from sections of upper beach was found to decrease disturbance of the species by more than half and attracted increased numbers of breeding pairs, although the distribution of the species on the beach contracted to within the protected area.

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Current Conservation

No descriptions

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Current Conservation

No descriptions

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Legal Protection

Country	Status	Reference
Brunei Darussalam
Cambodia
China
Indonesia
Japan
Korea
Lao PDR
Malaysia	Protected Wild Birds Part I: Game Birds	Law of Malaysia Act 76, Protection of Wild Life Act 1972 (Amend. 2006)
Mongolia
Myanmar
Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Vietnam

 

Related Links

 

Range

Geographical Information

Migration Route

 

Asian Waterbird Census

Descriptions

The Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) was initiated in 1987 and runs in parallel with other waterbird censuses carried out in Africa, Europe, Central and West Asia and Latin America under the umbrella of the International Waterbird Census (IWC), which is organised by Wetlands International.

The AWC takes place annually, during the second and third weeks of January, and is carried out by volunteers interested in collecting information on waterbirds and wetlands as a basis for contributing to their conservation.

Reference: Li, Z.W.D., Bloem, A., Delany S., Martakis G. and Quintero J. O. 2009. Status of Waterbirds in Asia - Results of the Asian Waterbird Census: 1987-2007. Wetlands International, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Census Data

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual	123	104	106	134	42	17		10		6	38	220	85				15					49
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)	2	3	3	2	3	3		3		2	2	3	2				1					2
The total number of count sites	2	3	3	2	4	4	0	4	4	4	4	5	5	0	0	0	9	0	0	1	0	9
CAMBODIA	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual								4							5
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)								1							1
The total number of count sites	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	0	11	0	0	12	12	11	5	1	6	9	6	6
CHINA	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual			151	2104	1190	5969	795	766	19	388	435	150						9871	40657	4467	10456	8932
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)			5	4	10	5	7	4	1	1	1	1						10	24	31	28	29
The total number of count sites	0	1	34	12	50	60	67	29	6	14	6	15	21	20	14	10	22	45	80	81	59	72
INDONESIA	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual					4		83	9	51	8	80			62			6	488			3	60
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)					2		2	2	4	1	1			5			1	2			1	2
The total number of count sites	0	0	0	1	19	8	17	17	15	19	16	0	0	47	12	10	40	34	14	16	15	23
JAPAN	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual								772	1093	1289	1023	737	653	728	7015	6349	5591	6331	5623	8374	5171	4430
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)								7	16	18	17	10	8	12	68	68	64	66	60	59	58	61
The total number of count sites	0	0	0	53	39	52	47	20	50	40	47	37	41	37	107	112	103	109	97	159	142	137
LAO PDR	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual															9	5
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)															2	1
The total number of count sites	0	0	0	2	4	5	3	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	14	1	0	0	0	1	0	0
MALAYSIA	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual				3	209	96		24	8	4	20			5	95	36	31	82	20	43	705	15
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)				2	5	4		4	2	1	3			1	3	3	2	3	2	7	20	3
The total number of count sites	0	0	0	59	68	93	85	17	10	7	10	0	0	20	25	25	25	43	43	82	82	40
MYANMAR	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual		2					109	4	4	44					13	12	57	352	363	519	4644	3
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)		1					2	1	1	2					3	3	6	5	5	5	18	1
The total number of count sites	0	5	3	12	17	15	21	20	13	12	2	4	2	0	7	32	47	73	24	31	32	19
PHILIPPINES	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual					4184	1016	1434	3064	1329	2535	4546	1773	1967	1341	2952	7199	1130	948	2460	6540	3923	2933
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)					10	9	13	17	15	15	20	10	15	18	22	11	21	24	17	16	13	23
The total number of count sites	0	0	0	0	19	21	34	39	46	47	39	28	29	32	43	38	50	47	56	54	65	108
SINGAPORE	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual						18	1	22	40	10	13	1		6		2			1
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)						1	1	3	2	1	1	1		1		1			1
The total number of count sites	0	0	0	0	4	12	17	15	13	14	10	10	6	11	10	10	8	9	9	8	8	7
REPUBLIC OF KOREA	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual			30								2	3	43	338	648	1052	156	203	489	449	507	330
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)			1								1	1	1	7	11	10	4	9	7	8	10	7
The total number of count sites	0	0	10	12	22	20	20	15	10	22	25	22	14	68	99	112	118	116	117	123	127	127
THAILAND	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual	548	31		782	158	22	4	134	10		36	21	30	50	788	16		197	128	548	3659	1687
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)	7	4		5	5	4	2	4	1		3	1	1	1	1	2		8	5	17	21	14
The total number of count sites	10	8	3	20	26	12	23	16	17	5	9	3	1	1	7	3	9	26	20	82	99	33
VIETNAM	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
The number of observed individual					5		1						80	148	10		1240	25	2	780	296	939
The number of observed sites(not all count sites)					1		1						1	2	1		10	1	1	3	6	4
The total number of count sites	0	0	0	1	2	0	1	4	0	1	1	0	1	8	2	2	16	4	4	9	6	11

 

Population

Descriptions

 

Population Trend

 

Additional Information

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Climate change species distributions

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Other Information

• Detailed species account from Birds in Europe: population estimates, trends and conservation status (BirdLife International 2004)