The Caspian Plover is a wader

Wader

Waders, called shorebirds in North America , are members of the order Charadriiformes, excluding the more marine web-footed seabird groups. The latter are the skuas , gulls , terns , skimmers , and auks...

 in the plover

Plover

Plovers are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae. There are about 40 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or "dotterel". The closely related lapwing subfamily, Vanellinae, comprises another 20-odd species.Plovers are found throughout...

 family of bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s.

It breeds on open grassland

Grassland

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...

 in central Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, mainly to the north and east of the Caspian Sea

Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...

. This bird breeds in loose colonies, with three eggs being laid in a ground nest. These birds migrate

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

 south in winter to east Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, usually still on grassland or arable. This plover is a very rare vagrant in western Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. It is also a rare vagrant to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

It feeds in a similar way to other plovers picking insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s and other small prey mainly from grassland or arable.

This attractive plover is slightly larger than Ringed Plover

Ringed Plover

The Common Ringed Plover or Ringed Plover is a small plover.Adults are 17-19.5 cm in length with a 35–41 cm wingspan. They have a grey-brown back and wings, a white belly, and a white breast with one black neckband. They have a brown cap, a white forehead, a black mask around the eyes...

, and it recalls Greater Sandplover and Lesser Sandplover in appearance. It is slimmer and longer-legged than the sandplovers, and has a much stronger white supercilium, and a long thin bill

Beak

The beak, bill or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds which is used for eating and for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship and feeding young...

. It also lacks white tail sides and a weak wing bar.

Summer males have grey-brown backs and a white face and belly. The breast is chestnut, bordered black below. Other plumage

Plumage

Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season. Within species there can also be a...

s have a grey-brown breast band, although the summer female may show a hint of chestnut. The call is a sharp chip.

The Caspian Plover is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA

AEWA

The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds is the largest of its kind developed so far under the Bonn Convention. It was concluded on 16 June 1995 at The Hague, the Netherlands and entered into force on 1 November 1999 after the required number of at least fourteen...

) applies.