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Sanderling | Calidris alba
Drieteenstrandloper | Correlimos tridáctilo
The Sanderling is the sandpiper of the surf: small flocks run back and forth along the wave line, picking food from the receding water and fleeing the next wave. It breeds on the high Arctic tundra and is a common winter visitor in the Caribbean on sandy beaches of almost every island. It lacks a hind toe, hence its Dutch name, meaning three-toed sandpiper.
Voice
A short, sharp kweet or twick, often in flight; flocks also give a soft twittering.
Recording: Daan van der Hoeven — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–20 cm, compact, with a short, straight black bill and black legs. In winter plumage the palest sandpiper in the region: pale grey above, pure white below and on the face, with a black patch at the bend of the wing that often shows as a dark shoulder mark. Juveniles have a black-and-white chequered back. In breeding plumage, sometimes partly present in spring, rufous on head, breast and back. In flight a broad white wing bar between a dark leading edge and dark primaries.
Confusion species
Semipalmated Sandpiper Calidris pusilla and Western Sandpiper Calidris mauri are smaller and darker grey-brown, lack the black wing bend and rarely feed in the surf. Red Knot Calidris canutus is larger and greyer, with a longer bill. Dunlin Calidris alpina has a longer bill drooping at the tip and a greyer breast.
Habitat
Mainly sandy beaches with breaking waves, also sandbars, tidal flats, coral cays and the edges of salt pans. It eats small crustaceans, worms and tiny molluscs exposed by the waves. At high tide flocks rest higher on the beach or on rocks, often with turnstones.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Winter visitor and passage migrant on almost every island: the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Lesser Antilles, the ABC Islands, San Andrés and Trinidad and Tobago. Common on suitable beaches, scarcer on islands with mainly rocky coasts. Beyond the region it breeds on high Arctic tundra and winters on beaches over almost the entire world.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Wide sandy beaches early in the morning, before they get busy, for example in the Bahamas and on the north coasts of Cuba and Puerto Rico. A pale sandpiper running up and down at the wave line is almost always this species.
Conservation status
Not threatened, although counts along the American Atlantic coast point to a decline. In the region undisturbed beaches matter; disturbance by recreation, loose dogs and coastal development reduces roosting and feeding sites.
Scientific name
Calidris alba | (Pallas, 1764)
Pallas described the species in 1764 as Trynga alba; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Calidris was introduced in 1804 by Merrem. Calidris goes back to Ancient Greek kalidris or skalidris, a name Aristotle used for an unidentified grey waterside bird. alba is Latin for 'white', after the pale winter plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from the North Sea coast.