16 June 2010

Little-ringed Plover is the simplest of these three species to identify, mostly due to its distinct yellow eye ring, lack of wing bar (only visible in flight) and its yellow, not orange, legs. The other two species can be very similar indeed, as this article describes. The videos of Ringed Plover and Semi-palmated Plover illustrate a key difference, being the width of the dark line between eye and bill. In the Semi-palmated Plover video, this is very narrow but contrastingly thick for Ringed Plover. There are also subtle differences in build. The Semi-palmated Plover is slimmer and more attenuated. It also has a narrower dark breast band.