Dear Joseph,

I think there can be no doubt that the bird you have is in fact a Greater
Sand Plover. The most important features in separating Greater and Lesser
are considered to be the shape and length of the bill, shape of the wingbar
and uppertail pattern. Other features worth looking for, although not always
conclusive, are leg length and colour.

Lesser's bill is normally shorter and more blunt tipped than Greater's. A
classic Greater Sand Plover really has a "monster" of a bill compared to any
Lesser that you will ever see. The smallest subspecies of Greater's bill
gets down to a similar length to that of a large Lesser and that's when one
has to look at the "bluntness" of the tip of the bill.

With regards the wingbar, both have equally prominent inner wing bars. On
the primary bars, the Lesser's wing bar has parallel sides and is reasonably
narrow, whereas the Greater's wingbar has unparallel sides and gets wider
towards the wing tip, thus giving a far more prominent appearance.

Lesser's uppertail pattern generally appears uniform brown with maybe some
small indications of a white edge to the tail. Greater's tail normally shows
more white on the outer feathers (although, not always), but the clincher in
the tail pattern, is that Greaters always show a prominent dark subterminal
band, with the rest of the tail, by contrast, being lighter.

Greaters normally have longer legs with a proportionately longer tibia
showing. Leg colour in Lessers seems to remain dark grey to black, whereas
in Greaters it is almost always lighter grey and can vary through to almost
an olive green.

Head shape and collar shape have been cited as other useful features, but I
have never found these to be of too much help in the field. And they are
also separable on call.

I hope this may be of some use to you.

Kind Regards
Trevor

Trevor Hardaker
Chairman: South African Rarities Committee

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