Michele Mendi

Medium-sized shorebird breeding in the tundra and moors from Iceland, also Greenland, Scandinavia and Baltic states to central Siberia. Northern subspecies altifrons, southern nominate apricaria breeds in British Isles, Germany, Denmark to the Baltic states. Winters mainly in grasslands and farmlands, from British Isles through the Mediterranean basin to the Caspian Sea.

Season of assessment

B

Population trendStable
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		1660000-2310000,1960000
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 European Golden Plover

The distribution of recovery distances indicates a variable movement strategy, from regional to long-distance movements. The direction of observed movements if towards SW Europe, to in a SE direction for Icelandic birds, S direction for British birds, and SW direction for continental birds. Most of the ringing effort is achieved in the Netherlands in winter, so the connectivity pattern is mainly deduced from the further winter or summer movements of such birds, whose recoveries are dispersed from Morocco to far eastern Russia. There are several recoveries of birds ringed as altifrons and recovered in the overlap range with Pacific Golden Plover P. fulva, and even one far east NE of Yakutsk (at 130.7°E!).

Recoveries by Condition for European Golden Plover

Globally, half the recoveries are of dead birds, a proportion that dropped from ~75% before to 30% after 1990. There is an increase in recovery numbers along time.

Annual Movements for European Golden Plover

The recovery data of birds ringed in West Europe illustrates very well the dichotomy and the extend of wintering sites in W and SW Europe, and breeding sites to the NW. Such regions at mid-latitudes are certainly key hotpots in the movement strategy of the species. The moult strategy is variable different between Icelandic and Russian populations due to migratory constraints and shorter breeding season for the latter (Machín et al. 2018). No tracking data available yet, needed to inform the obvious winter movements in the species.

Connectivity by Month by Region for European Golden Plover

Birds breeding in East Europe are on the move in Central Europe in April, with still last spring recoveries during the same month in West Europe. The bulk of summer recoveries in the breeding range of North Europe and arctic Russia is from May to July, with first birds back on wintering sites in September. Icelandic and Scottish birds are mainly recovered in winter range in SW Europe in December-February, with recoveries of Icelandic birds in the British Isles in September-October, then April.

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
Machín, P., Remisiewicz, M., Fernández-Elipe, J., Jukema, J., Klaassen, R.H.G.2018 . Conditions at the breeding grounds and migration strategy shape different moult patterns of two populations of Eurasian golden plover Pluvialis apricaria. Journal of Avian Biology 49 article no.: e01709 Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jav.01709)

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