These pics of Pacific Golden Plover are copied from published
sources - my apologies to all copyright owners concerned (if you
object please email me and I will remove the image); I do this
only to further the discussion on the unusual Plover.
While these PAGP are not typical, I feel that they establish that
a proportion of the PAGP population can appear to be as
long-winged as some AMGPs; in "Tundra Plovers", Byrkjedal
and Thompson have a graphic showing geographic variation in Pluvialis,
and it may be significant that PAGPs from Kamchatka and SW Alaska
are clearly longer-winged (and longer-billed) than PAGPs from
the east (the rest of Alaska) or west (the rest of Russia); I
wonder where this population migrates/winters, and I speculate
that vagrants to Europe plus the normal California winterers are
from the shorter-winged populations on either side(?). Update,
Sept 2001: I have received details, via James Barton, from
Russian researchers that confirm that the fulvas from the
Trans-Yakutia region of east-central Siberia have an average wing
length that is significantly longer than the average for
fulva as a whole, and comes within a millimeter or two
of the average for dominica:-
A) look not at the foreground bird, but at the wingtips/tail tip
of the background bird:
B) Location unknown, but this pic is by Brian Chudleigh - a New
Zealand photographer; note the primary projection on this bird
(the tail tip location cannot be seen):
C) Location unknown, but photographer Pavel Tomkovitch is Russian;
note the apparent length of the primaries beyond the tail:
D) Location Oman, by Conrad Greaves. Note the apparent primary
extension beyond the tail, plus how dull this individual
is; what might it look like in May?:
E) Location the Yamal Peninsula, northwest Siberia, by Vadim K.
Ryabitsev ( from "Tundra Plovers"). Identified as a
female:
