Pacific Golden Plover
Pluvier fauve en plumage reproducteur – Photo Alain Petit
Pluvier Fauve_Tahiti – Photo Alain Petit
9 inches. Male and female identical in appearance. Individuals with non-breeding plumage have the top of the brown body dotted with white patches, red and fawn. The belly shades from white to beige. The head is tawny. The cap has similar colours as the one of the back. Individuals with breeding plumage have the cheeks, throat, chest and belly of the same black colour. The latter is rimmed by a thick white stripe. The legs are long with colours going from dark grey to olive grey. The beak is black and short.
Its approach is characteristic: it runs a small distance, stops abruptly, searches food on the ground and runs again very quickly.
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Charadriidae
Category: Migratory Birds
Breeds from June to July in Siberia and West Alaska. From August to April, it winters in the Pacific Islands, South-West Asia, New Zealand and Australia. Visible everywhere in French Polynesia where some individuals stay all year.
It’s a wader species. During day time it searches for food on fields (grass meadows, lawns gardens, roadsides, soccer fields and runways) and taro fields, but also on shores and reefs exposed by the tides. These birds gather by the sea where they usually spend the night.
« tou-wit… » repeated two to three times as an alarm.
To listen the Pacific Golden Plover:
http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Pluvialis-fulva
Insects, larvae and small crustaceans.
Breeds from June to July in East Siberia and West Alaska but never in French Polynesia. Nests in a vaguely defined nest herbs, moss or leaves. The female lays 3 to 5 white creamed eggs with black spots, measuring an average of 48 x 33 mm.
Original text by Caroline BLANVILLAIN – Supplements and update by various members of the SOP Manu.
Bibliography:
https://inpn.mnhn.fr/espece/cd_nom/3170
http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/species.jsp?avibaseid=07C11CF340D2017A
http://www.oiseaux.net/oiseaux/pluvier.fauve.html
http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/pacific-golden-plover-pluvialis-fulva
http://www.hbw.com/ibc/species/pacific-golden-plover-pluvialis-fulva
https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22693735/93419468
Scientific Name: Pluvialis fulva (Gmelin, 1789)
Polynesian Names:
Torea (Society and Tuamotu); ti’ofi – ti’afe (Austral)
- Siberia and Alaska (breeding)
- Whole French Polynesia
The species is classified as “Least Concern” (LC) on the IUCN Red List.
