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PLEASE! If you see any mistakes, I'm 100% sure that I have wrongly identified some birds.
So please let me know on my guestbook at the bottom of the page
So please let me know on my guestbook at the bottom of the page
  The Lesser Sand Plover (Charadrius mongolus) is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is commonly given as lesser sand-plover, but the official British Ornithologists' Union spelling is "lesser 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 mongolus is Latin and refers to Mongolia which at the time of naming referred to a larger area than the present country. Distribution It breeds above the tree line in the Himalayas and discontinuously across to bare coastal plains in north-eastern Siberia, with the Mongolian plover in the eastern part of the range; it has also bred in Alaska. It nests in a bare ground scrape, laying three eggs. This species is strongly migratory, wintering on sandy beaches in east Africa, south Asia and Australasia. It is a very rare vagrant in western Europe, but of the three individuals recorded in Great Britain up to 2003, one was a Mongolian plover.   Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
www.oiseaux.net is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there
Taxonomy There are five races, and the large east Asian forms, C. m. mongolus and C. m. stegmanni, are sometimes given specific status as Mongolian plovers, Charadrius mongolus. If the taxonomic split is accepted, lesser sand plover as then defined becomes Charadrius atrifrons, including the three races atrifrons, pamirensis and schaeferi. Description This chunky plover is long-legged and long-billed. Breeding males have grey backs and white underparts. The breast, forehead and nape are chestnut, and there is a black eye mask. The female is duller, and winter and juvenile birds lack the chestnut, apart from a hint of rufous on the head. Legs are dark and the bill black. In all plumages, this species is very similar to the greater sand plover, Charadrius leschenaultii. Separating the species may be straightforward in mixed wintering flocks on an Indian beach, where the difference in size and structure is obvious; it is more difficult to identify a lone vagrant to western Europe, where both species are very rare. The problem is compounded in that the Middle Eastern race of greater sand plover is the most similar to the lesser. The lesser usually has darker legs, a white forehead, and a more even white wing bar than the greater.
Identification Size is one of the factors distinguishing a lesser sand plover from a greater sand plover, with the lesser being slightly smaller. However, it is not easy to rely on size alone especially when seen individually. The length of the bill is another distinguishing feature, with the lesser generally having a shorter bill compared to a greater. The colour of the legs in a lesser sand plover is generally darker, ranging from black to grey, while in a greater sand plover it is much paler, ranging from grey to yellowish.  Male in breeding plumage
Moo Ban Pramong / Khok Kham, Thailand - April 2020
 Juvenile or winter plumage?
Moo Ban Pramong / Khok Kham, Thailand - April 2020
Listen to the Lesser Sand Plover
Sound from www.xeno-canto.org
Sound from www.xeno-canto.org
 Ecology The lesser sand plover's feeds on insects, crustaceans and annelid worms, which are obtained by a run-and-pause technique, rather than the steady probing of some other wader groups. This species takes fewer steps and shorter pauses than the greater sand plover when feeding. The flight call is a hard trill. The lesser sand plover is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
 Lesser Sand Plover - And we see the black flag over the green flag
on the right leg. And one ring above the foot on the left leg Moo Ban Pramong / Khok Kham, Thailand - April 2020
And from the Shorebird Color Flagging Protocol on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Click HERE for the Shorebird Color Flagging Protocol. We can see that a BLACK flag over a GREEN flag on the right leg means that the bird is ringed in Gulf of Thailand. Coloured flags on right leg.
Conservation status
 Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN. 2012
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Sighted: (Date of first photo that I could use) 4 April 2020 Location: Moo Ban Pramong / Khok Kham Thank's to Nick Upton at www.thaibirding.com for HOT birding tip. His web page is a ONE STOP for everything you need for bird watching in Thailand. There are reviews of the birding sites with maps and information. And if you like Nick Upton's web page you will also like www.norththailandbirding.com I have used this page together with Nick Upton's page when planning my birding tours. Excellent reviews and information about the birding sites. I also got the Thai names of the birds from www.norththailandbirding.com. There is a bird check list with all the names in English and Thai. And of course also the Scientific Name. Down load the birdlist in Microsoft Excel format at www.norththailandbirding.com Or down load the Excel sheet by clicking HERE PLEASE! As I'm a first time birdwatcher bear in mind that some of the bird can be wrongly named. I have bought book and I confirm on the internet to get the right identity on the birds I take pictures off. But there can still be mistakes.  Lesser Sand Plover / นกหัวโตทรายเล็ก - 4 April 2020 - Moo Ban Pramong / Khok Kham
 Lesser Sand Plover / นกหัวโตทรายเล็ก - 17 April 2020 - Moo Ban Pramong / Khok Kham
 Lesser Sand Plover / นกหัวโตทรายเล็ก - 20 April 2020 - Moo Ban Pramong / Khok Kham
 Lesser Sand Plover / นกหัวโตทรายเล็ก - 13 May 2020 - Moo Ban Pramong / Khok Kham
PLEASE! If I have made any mistakes identifying any bird, PLEASE let me know on my guestbook 
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