Common sandpiper

 ( Actitis ) 

The common sandpiper ( Actitis hypoleucos) is a small Palearctic wader. This bird and its Americas sister species, the spotted sandpiper ( A. macularia), make up the genus Actitis. They are parapatric and replace each other geographically; stray birds of either species may settle down with breeders of the other and hybridize. Hybridization has also been reported between the common sandpiper and the green sandpiper, a basal species of the closely related genus Tringa.

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Taxonomy The common sandpiper was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tringa hypoleucos. The species is now placed together with the spotted sandpiper in the genus Actitis that was introduced in 1811 by the German zoologist Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger. The genus name Actitis is from Ancient Greek aktites meaning "coast-dweller" from akte meaning "coast". The specific epithet hypoleucos combines the Ancient Greek hupo meaning "beneath" with leukos meaning "white".

J.A. Jobling (2025). 9781408125014, Christopher Helm. ISBN 9781408125014

The species is monotypic and no subspecies are recognised.

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Description

The adult is long with a wingspan. It has greyish-brown upperparts, white underparts, short dark-yellowish legs and feet, and a bill with a pale base and dark tip. In winter plumage, they are duller and have more conspicuous barring on the wings, though this is still only visible at close range. Juveniles are more heavily barred above and have buff edges to the wing feathers.

(1986). 9780395602379, Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780395602379

This species is very similar to the slightly larger spotted sandpiper ( A. macularia) in non-breeding plumage. But its darker legs and feet and the crisper wing pattern (visible in flight) tend to give it away, and of course they are only rarely found in the same location.

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Distribution and migration

The common sandpiper breeds across most of temperate and subtropical Europe and Asia, and bird migration to Africa, southern Asia and Australia in winter. The eastern edge of its migration route passes by Palau in Micronesia, where hundreds of birds may gather for a stop-over. They depart the Palau region for their breeding quarters around the last week of April to the first week of May.

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Behaviour and ecology

The Common Sandpiper is usually encountered alone, occasionally in small groups, although larger flocks are sometimes formed around migration

(2025). 9780643097544, CSIRO. ISBN 9780643097544

or at breeding season roosts. It seldom joins multispecies flocks. This species has a distinctive stiff-winged flight, low over the water.

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Breeding

It nests on the ground near freshwater. When threatened, the young may cling to their parent's body to be flown away to safety.

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Feeding

The common sandpiper forages by sight on the ground or in shallow water, picking up small food items such as , and other ; it may even catch insects in flight.

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Conservation

It is widespread and common, and therefore classified as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List but is a vulnerable species in some states of Australia. The common sandpiper is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.

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Relationship to humans

In the Nukumanu language of the Nukumanu Islands (Papua New Guinea), this species is usually called tiritavoi. Another Nukumanu name for it, matakakoni, exists, but this is considered somewhat taboo and not used when children and women are around. The reason for this is that matakakoni means "bird that walks a little, then copulates", in reference to the pumping tail and thrusting head movements the Actitis species characteristically perform during foraging.

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External links

• Ageing and sexing (PDF; 5.5 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
• Common sandpiper species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds

Categories: Actitis, Wading Birds, Birds Of Eurasia, Birds Described In 1758, Animal Taxa Named By Carl Linnaeus

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