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
Collared pratincole to aerial feeding. The back and head are brown, and the wings are brown with darker flight feathers. The belly is white. The underwings are chestnut, but look dark below. Very good views are needed to distinguish this species from other pratincoles, such as the black-winged pratincole and the oriental pratincole, which may occur in its range. The latter species also has a chestnut underwing, but is shorter-tailed. The collared pratincole is divided into two subspecies: Pratincoles are unusual among waders in that they typically hunt their insect prey on the wing like swallows, although they can also feed on