BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Howard King" data-source="post: 1582986" data-attributes="member: 28628">Reading through the PDF file linked to by JanJ I came across the following might be worth a go on a square on photo from Virgina -- I am going to try it first on some off my own photos to see if it works.Hirschfeld et al.: Identification of sand plovers - British Birds 93:162-189, April 2000 page 167Millington (1988) proposed a formula involving tarsus length (from knee to foot) divided by bill length (from tip to where feathering meets culmen) for identifying the two species from photographs, the ratios being 1.59:1 for Greater and 1.85-1.99:1 for Lesser. Although this formula seems to be fairly accurate, the ratio is difficult to determine, as the angle from which the photograph is taken needs to be considered.PS had MIXED RESULTS found the bill length to back of eye ratio works much better</blockquote>