Oriental pratincole Great Britain more than once. The first record for the Western Palearctic was in Suffolk, England in June 1981. On 7 February 2004, 2.5 million oriental pratincoles were recorded on Eighty Mile Beach in Australia's north-west by the Australasian Wader Studies Group. There had previously been no records of this magnitude and it is supposed that weather conditions caused much of the world's population of this species to congregate in one area. Oriental pratincole The oriental pratincole ("Glareola maldivarum"), also known as the grasshopper-bird or swallow-plover, is a wader in the pratincole family, Glareolidae. The genus name is a diminutive
Australian pratincole sandy-buff fringes. Sometimes there are dark flecks at the borders of the pale throat. Juvenile – The plumage is similar to a non-breeding adult but a slightly paler sandy brown colour. The lores lack the black colour and the forehead, crown and nape are streaked dark brown. The bill is grey-black with a faint reddish base. In flight – The upperbody and inner wing are sandy brown with black on the outer wing. The tail is square-cut with the upper-tail coverts and sides of the tail white. The Australian pratincole is slightly slimmer and smaller in size with longer legs