Birds of Russia and Adjacent Regions: The Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius Semipalmatus)

The Semipalmated Plover is a Nearctic shorebird that, according to unconfirmed observations, expanded to northeastern Chukotka and Wrangel Island presumably in the late 1980s. Its breeding was confirmed in several places on the Chukchi Peninsula only in the early 2000s (Лаппо и др., 2012). Several records made west of the Bering Strait at the turn of the 20th century appear to have been identification errors. Apart from the Chukchi Peninsula reliable records of the species during the breeding season were made near Anadyr and Meinypil’gyno (Сыроечковский и др., 2019). On migration Semipalmated Plovers were recorded in the Russian Far East at the Commander Islands (Мамаев, 2014), Southern Kurile Islands (Барканова, Глущенко, 2020), and Primorye (Шохрин, 2019). Identification of the species, plumages, moults, breeding and non-breeding ranges, migrations, breeding biology, behaviour, food, predators and parasites are briefly described based on published sources.