Ruth Walker

Arctic breeding plover with a circumpolar breeding range across Siberia and Canada, wintering along coasts of all oceans, in Europe from the British coasts to the Mediterranean basin. Probably monotypic, though if polytypic, only squatarola breeds and winters in Europe.

Season of assessment

W

Population trendStable
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		84800-119000,95100
Red List categoryLC
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Grey Plover

Very extended latitudinal range of recoveries, from South Africa to coastal Central Siberia at 79°E. The main directions of migration are to the SW from Siberia or from Europe to West Africa, and to the S in the rest of Africa. The ringing effort is concentrated in Europe at latitudes where the species is not breeding, so at stopover or wintering sites. The very large majority of recoveries come from the coastline from Denmark to France ad facing England – where the species is ringed and hunted. As breeding sites are remote in the arctic tundra, there are very few recoveries of breeders, all in Siberia. African winter recoveries are from Morocco, Senegal, the Gulf of Guinea, and one from South Africa, of a bird ringed in Romania in October.

Recoveries by Condition for Grey Plover

As for many waterbirds benefiting from the recent deployment of colour ringing schemes, the shift from older dead recoveries to modern live recoveries is obvious, though still 35% of recoveries are of dead birds after 1990 – this plover being a game bird in several countries in W and SW Europe.

Annual Movements for Grey Plover

Grey Plovers tagged while resting in the Wadden Sea moved to Yamal or Taimyr for the breeding season (E to c. 100°E), and wintered from Northern Ireland and the Wadden Sea south to Guinea Bissau in West Africa (Exo et al. 2019). For Siberian breeders, this tracking study also identified autumn stopover sites in arctic Russia, and an inland spring route over East Europe and western Russia. A further contribution of this tracking study is to prove individual fidelity to breeding and wintering sites, which is impossible to document with dead ring recoveries. 2nd calendar-year individuals stay on the wintering grounds but can move to breeding grounds, though later then adults (Exo et al. 2019).

Connectivity by Month by Region for Grey Plover

Most first-summer plovers stay in the winter range, so that the year-round distribution of recoveries in the British Isles and the Wadden Sea does not allow to draw a precise monthly connectivity picture, but tracking data of birds tagged in the Wadden Sea complete the figure; Grey Plovers leave their wintering grounds between mid and end of March, rest in the Wadden Sea until mid to end of May, then move rapidly close to the breeding grounds with several short final bouts depending on snow cover (Exo et al. 2019). In autumn, plovers return to the Baltic, Wadden and North Seas as early as August, and September.

Frédéric Jiguet

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
Exo, K.M., Hillig, F., Bairlein, F.2019 . Migration routes and strategies of Grey Plovers (Pluvialis squatarola) on the East Atlantic Flyway as revealed by satellite tracking. Avian Research 10 Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40657-019-0166-5)

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