Greater Sand-Plover

The greater sand plover is a chunky plover 19–22cm long, slightly larger than a common ringed plover and conspicuously long-legged and thick-billed. Breeding males have sandy-buff backs and white underparts, with the breast, forehead and nape variably orange in summer and a black eye mask. The female is duller and greyer, and winter and juvenile birds are browner apart from a hint of rufous on the head (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in the semi-deserts of Turkey and eastwards through Central Asia, nesting in a bare ground scrape. It is strongly migratory, wintering on sandy beaches in East Africa, South Asia and Australasia, and its flight call is a soft trill (Wikipedia, general species account).