Habitat
Large lowland tropical rivers with bars of sand and gravel. Also, around human settlements near rivers, and occasionally other wetland habitats. Found away from water when not breeding or when rivers are in spate. It generally avoids heavily forested areas and estuarine waters.
Vagrant to Burundi, Egypt, Kenya, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
Sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia, south to northern Zaire and Uganda and narrowly into the lower basin of R Congo (Zaire) and extreme northern Angola; formerly northern along R Nile into Egypt, where now extinct.
Population
Estimated population is 22,000 - 85,000 (2010).
Egyptian Plover (Pluvianus aegyptius) [XC605867]
by Peter Boesman from Doubeli (by the banks of the Benue River near Jimeta), Adamawa, Nigeria (alarm call, call)
Egyptian Plover (Pluvianus aegyptius) [XC404653]
by Sun Madakan from Wassadou, Tambacounda, Senegal (call)
Nest
A deep scrape on an exposed sandbank in a riverbed, The eggs are incubated by being buried in warm sand.
Subspecies
Birds from northern Angola and Zaire somewhat smaller, sometimes regarded as subspecies angolae, but variation is clinal, so not normally recognized.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet