Lesser Sandplover

The lesser sand plover, now called the Siberian sand plover, is a stocky wader with long legs and a long bill. Breeding males have a grey back, white underparts, a chestnut breast and forehead and a black eye mask, and females are duller. It is slightly smaller than the greater sand plover, with a shorter bill and darker legs, but lone birds are hard to separate. Its flight call is a hard trill. In 2023 the IOC split the Tibetan sand plover from it and renamed this species (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds on bare coastal plains in north-eastern Siberia, laying three eggs in a scrape on bare ground, and is strongly migratory, wintering on sandy beaches in east and south-east Asia and Australia. It has been recorded in India, at Jamnagar and Chilika. The source does not mention Nepal or the Himalaya, where Tibetan-plateau birds may now be treated as the split species (Wikipedia, general species account).