Can't access original paper. However, there's this:
Breeding male seebohmi lack the chestnut cap of alexandrinus while the black forehead bar and loral stripes average weaker, the latter sometimes absent. ML379589661 - Kentish Plover (Hanuman) - Macaulay Library compare ML229567321 - Kentish Plover - Macaulay Library Difference in leg colour is also quoted, seebohmi grey versus alexandrinus black, but very much doubt it's reliable.Can't access original paper. However, there's this:
"They found that these birds tended to have smaller wings, tails and beaks than the Kentish plover, as well as different plumage. The Kentish plover tends to have black legs in both sexes, while the Hanuman plover has dark grey legs. Males have a black stripe across their forehead that C. alexandrinus doesn't."
From:
Shorebird Hanuman plover recognised as a full species again after 86 years
The Hanuman plover has been reinstated as a species in its own right, after spending almost a century classed as a subspecies.www.nhm.ac.uk
(Dark grey vs black... Should be easy...)
If I read you correctly you say the black forehead bar is the opposite way around to the quote. Is it what you intended?
That is indeed correct, the article you post has it the wrong way round i.e head pattern of nominate is far more distinctive than seebohmi. See also Birds of South Asia (Rasmussen).
Well... Given that the ID criteria seem hazy, the birds aren't in full breeding plumage, and the photo-quality is low (no offence)... No (obviously).
You are answering 'no' for 'Would any of you...' ?
Yes (that was the question I quoted).
Actually, I said I wouldn't bother with 'just find[ing] some Sri Lankan breeders and tick[ing] them' (as to do so would seem a rather sterile ID exercise, but is a ticking option). But this was said before there was further ID discussion, and it was a response to this later discussion that Stu requested and I provided.
Mine from there over a number of Nov visits are like yours - maybe a little better - and look like seebohmi too.
So... Could you say how the OP's photos look like seebohmi (rather than alexandrinus)?
