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
Black-winged pratincole as the collared pratincole and the oriental pratincole which may occur in its range. It is marginally larger than the collared pratincole, and is shorter-tailed and longer legged. Although the dark underwing and lack of a white trailing edge to the wing are diagnostic, these features are not always readily seen in the field, especially as the chestnut underwing of the collared pratincole appears black unless excellent views are obtained. The black-winged pratincole is one of the species to which the "Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds" (AEWA) applies. Black-winged pratincole The black-winged pratincole ("Glareola nordmanni") is a