Tibetan Sandgrouse

Syrrhaptes tibetanus Gould, 1850

30–41 cmLength344 gWeight

It has an orange face and white belly, revealing black underwings in flight.

Most records: China

Looks like Pallas's Sandgrouse

Least Concern

How to identify

Field marks

Face orange
Breast, neck and crown gray with fine barring
Belly white, underwings black
Wings long and pointed, tail tip slender

Male, female and young

Male wings pale yellowish-brown and unmarked; female wing coverts barred. Juvenile lacks the slender tail tip and has less orange on the face.

Voice

Repeated ringing, two-syllable calls in flight.

Similar species

Pallas's Sandgrouse

The white belly and dark underwings of Tibetan Sandgrouse are key features separating it from Pallas's Sandgrouse.

Where and when it's recorded

Most records: China

Tibetan Sandgrouse has been recorded at 7 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 1 country or region.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

E'La Mountain PassChina15 records
Wild Yak GorgeChina9 records
Bayankala PassChina2 records

More places

Namtso LakeChina2 records
Przevalski’s SiteChina2 records
Yushu Airport & VicinityChina1 record
AngsaiChina1 record

Countries and regions with the most records

China

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The Tibetan sandgrouse (Syrrhaptes tibetanus) is a large bird in the sandgrouse family. The genus name Syrrhaptes is from Ancient Greek surrhaptos, "sewn together" (the feathered toes of this sandgrouse are fused together) and tibetanus is from the type locality, Tibet.

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